Grimm's Law
by LadySilver
Summary: Lisa dreams only of being left alone, until a girl who is alone walks into her dreams.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1   
  
"Lisa, are you feeling okay?"   
  
"What?" Lisa looked up at her boyfriend, sitting across the small coffee shop table from her. The   
nub of one pencil stuck out from behind his right ear, while he tapped the gnawed end of another   
against his lower lip. "Yeah, I'm fine," she said.   
  
Her words were almost lost in the hum of talk that filled the shop. It was early afternoon, yet the   
sun's last rays already shone through the front plate glass window onto the students seated at   
crowded tables. When the tables ran out, some students had even taken up positions on the floor,   
improvising chairs and tables out of backpacks and stacks of books. She and her boyfriend had   
been lucky enough to stake out an actual table, which was now obscured by a scattered   
assortment of papers and notebooks.   
  
As the front door opened and closed with the traffic, gusts of chill air sweetened the burning   
leaves smell of coffee that filled the shop.   
  
"Ya sure?" he asked, eyebrows creasing. "You look kinda distracted."   
  
"I'm fine," she repeated. "I'm just worried about finals. You know. Greenberg's is going to *kill*   
me." She indicated the open notebook in front of her for emphasis. She was highlighting the few   
notes that applied to the class in a color scheme that was more aesthetic than useful. "1204? Did   
you write down what happened in 1204?" Lisa stretched across the table to get a better look at   
her boyfriend's notes. There wasn't that much to see. The college ruled page had a couple of lines   
at the top that might be course related, in a scrawling handwriting that was nearly impossible to   
read upside down. The rest of the page was, as near a Lisa could tell, devoted to song lyrics. "Did   
you even bother to take notes?" she asked, falling back into her seat.   
  
"Sure," he answered. He flipped back a page. "See," he said, pointing to a block of text. "Here,   
and here." He went through the pages too rapidly for Lisa to verify what he was showing her.   
  
"Okay," she said, "So, did you happen to write down what happened in 1204? It's going to be on   
the test. You know it is."   
  
"What do your notes say?"   
  
"September 29th. That was the day of the lecture. 'External History of English - Highlights'," she   
read aloud. "Then I have a list of dates: 449, 597, 865, 1066, and 1204. I didn't write down what   
happened on those dates."   
  
"You even bother to take notes?" he mimicked.   
  
"Yeah, yeah," she said, subdued. "I know it was something important, or it wouldn't be in here."   
  
"Gimme." He grabbed her notebook away and started paging through it. "It can't be that   
important," he said, after a minute or so of looking. "You only have them in here once." He   
started to turn the page, then looked closer at what it said. "What do 'carpal', 'metacarpal',   
'phalanges', 'ulna' and 'radius' have to do with English history?"   
  
"They're words," she answered. "You know. Vocabulary words. They're, uh, descended from   
Latin and are, uh, you're not buying any of this are you?"   
  
He shook his head, then gently reached over and took her hand and started to massage it. "I know   
this is a phalange," he said, touching her index finger. He rubbed each finger in turn saying, "and   
so is this one." The massage finished, he pulled her hand up to his mouth and kissed her palm.   
"You have beautiful hands."   
  
"Thanks," Lisa answered, the glow of the attention heating up her face. The best part about being   
in a relationship, she decided, was the random compliments. Too bad finals were fast   
approaching and compliments didn't make good grades.   
  
She pulled her hand back and deliberately opened the notebook to the page with the dates.   
"Adam, we need to study."   
  
There was a slight pause in which everyone in the coffee shop seemed to stop talking. "Adam?   
Who's Adam?" he asked, then the noise started up again, louder.   
  
"What?" Her voice caught as her words started to catch up to her. "Where'd you hear 'Adam'? I   
said Isaac." No she didn't. She knew what she had said. What she couldn't figure out was why she   
said it.   
  
"You didn't. I know my name when I hear it. I didn't hear it. Who's Adam?" He let the pencil   
drop to the page and leaned back in his chair, as if to get a wider view of her.   
  
"I must have gotten mixed up. It's a pretty common name." She protested, but didn't feel it.   
  
"Lisa. You don't need to keep secrets from me. There ain't nothin' I can't handle." He said the last   
with a downward swipe of his hand. He was slipping into what Lisa had come to think of as his   
'tough guy' accent. He only used it when he was trying to prove something.   
  
"It's not important," she said at last. "Just this guy I knew a long time ago. I don't know what   
made me think of him now."   
  
"We look alike?" Isaac asked.   
  
She took a moment to size him up. Isaac wasn't what anyone would call gorgeous, but he was   
good looking. Clear skin, full lips, straight teeth, wide brown eyes with thick, dark lashes. His   
head was shaved in some current fashion that was probably an attempt to hide a retreating   
hairline. "I can't really remember," she answered, picturing Adam perfectly. There were no   
similarities at all. "He was white. Still is, I guess." She shrugged. "I think he had dark hair."   
  
Why was she lying? She was dating this guy; she should be telling him the truth. As much as she   
was allowed to tell, anyway.   
  
Isaac's eyes widened and he half stood up in his chair. "You got it on with a cracker!" He   
sounded repulsed at the mere idea. His lower lip began quivering in a way Lisa had never seen   
before, and his throat looked tight.   
  
So much for there being nothing you can't handle, she thought. "It bothers you that much?"   
  
"Hell, yeah. That's a sell out. African-American queens should only be gettin' it on with African-American kings."   
  
"We didn't 'get it on'," Lisa protested. Out of the corner of her eyes she glanced around the caf‚.   
The noise level hadn't changed again, but she felt like everyone was looking at her. One person   
was, a grad student type person at the next table who quickly looked away. Lisa lowered her   
volume, "I can't believe you're even saying what you're saying. We didn't date. We didn't kiss."   
  
'I teleported with him,' she remembered trying to explain to her mother. That conversation had   
gone only slightly better than this one.   
  
"Sit down," she continued. "You're making people stare. Adam was just a friend. I met him on a   
trip overseas and haven't seen him since. There's nothing more to tell you and nothing, absolutely   
nothing, for you to be so worked up about."   
  
"I ain't worked up." He sat down, reluctantly.   
  
"Bull. We've been seeing each other for over a month and this is the first time you've ever been   
anything but pleasant towards me. Come on. We were having a nice afternoon. As nice as   
possible, anyway, considering Greenberg's exam is less than two weeks away. Can you just drop   
it and let's study in peace?" She bent back over the notebook to lead by example, and started   
highlighting the dates. She'd have to remember to look them up.   
  
Isaac stood up without a comment and walked over to the register. Lisa didn't turn around to see   
what he was doing over there. Mostly, she was afraid to know. She tidied up some of the loose   
papers that had spilled from her notebook, old homework assignments and the like. She couldn't   
wait for the end of semester bonfire when she could turn all this paper into fuel.   
  
A minute later he returned. He plunked two large, paper cups on the table. "Green tea," he said.   
"We need a break from the caffeine." He sat down in his chair again, then scooted it over so he   
was sitting next to her. The legs squealed against the tile floor. No one seemed to notice. "1204,   
you said? That the date?"   
  
"Yeah," she said. "I think it has something to do with Vikings. Or Romans?" She picked up one   
of the textbooks for the class and started paging through it. "Maybe it's the French."   
  
Isaac slipped is arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to him. "Tell me again why we   
studying this. They all been dust for centuries."   
  
She let herself lean in against him. He smelled of Old Spice deodorant; a scent she was beginning   
to associate just with him. "It's going to be on the test." She almost added a comment about his   
grammar, but decided to let it slide. It wasn't too late to rescue the evening.   
  
"Don't he say that 'bout everything? He can't put everything on the test he say he gonna put on the   
test."   
  
She tilted her head to look up at him. "Remember the midterm?"   
  
His throat tightened again and he nodded. "1204," he said. "You find it yet?"   
  
"Not yet," she answered. "I can see I'm going to be up very late tonight."   
  
****   
  
Professor Grimm hated grading undergraduate research papers. At least once every semester he   
came to that same conclusion. The problem, as much as he hated to degrade other educators, was   
that high school English teachers seemed less and less interested in teaching grammar, spelling,   
vocabulary and form, and more and more interested in making sure the kids graduated with high   
self-esteems. The sad result was undergraduates who couldn't express a thought to save their   
lives, yet paradoxically believed that all of their writing was brilliant, award winning even.   
  
He set the current paper on the end table next to him. The top page was almost covered in red   
inked comments; comments he shouldn't have had to make to a student at the university level.   
Her paper was too long, for one thing. While he encouraged his students to go beyond the terms   
of the assignment, he still expected their work to be coherent. This one wasn't. There were topic   
sentences, but the arguments were mainly of the "because I said so" nature. Sadly, it was one of   
the better examples from this particular class.   
  
Letting out a deep breath, he pushed back into his leather easy chair and reached for the cup of   
coffee on the end table to his right. It was cold. He knew that before even touching the mug; it   
probably wasn't even the same cup he had made before coming into the den to get the grading   
finished. Indeed, one glance at the congealed cream floating on the surface of the liquid   
confirmed that. That meant he'd left the new cup somewhere else.   
  
He grabbed the handle on the side of the chair to lower the foot rest. It stuck in place. With the   
heal of his palm he pounded at it--and caused the chair to rock enough to bump the end table   
which sent the cold coffee mug tumbling to the floor.   
  
"Of course," he said out loud. He watched the dark strain spread across the beige carpet and   
remembered a time in his life when little problems like this would have ruined his day. He'd   
never had much of a temper, but he'd always taken petty problems far too seriously. Now his   
petty problems were a welcome relief.   
  
A pounding at the door broke into his thoughts. It took him a moment to connect the staccato   
with its meaning, and more awkward seconds to climb out of the chair.   
  
The hallway was dark; a storm having come in so fast while he was grading that the sunlight had   
all but disappeared. Who knew how long he'd been grading in artificial twilight.   
  
He opened the door to find one of his students, Alejandro, on the doorstep. The young man was   
standing as close to the door as he could without letting himself in, huddled under the overhang.   
Rain dripped from the eaves and fell from the sky so hard only the pock marks on the cement   
gave it away.   
  
"Hello, Professor," Alejo said. His hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his yellow jacket.   
  
Alejandro - Alejo - was an import from Mexico, an international student working on his English   
under Grimm's tutelage. He was, Grimm reflected, one of the best students in the department,   
and one of Grimm's personal favorites. Unlike many international students, Alejo didn't act like   
studying English was beneath him. He also wrote papers that weren't too long and which did get   
to the point.   
  
"Please, come inside. I can't have you standing outside in this weather. You might get too sick to   
go to class tomorrow." Professor Grimm ushered his student into his house, a strong breeze   
whipped up by a nascent snow storm all but forcing the young man to accept the invitation.   
  
No sooner was Alejo inside than the wind pulled the door shut with a loud bang that caused both   
men to jump.   
  
"I have sorry bothering you in home," Alejo said, squinting into the darkened room.   
  
"No, no. That's no problem. My students are always welcome to visit." Grimm stepped over to   
the nearby wall and flipped the light switch. One of the two bulbs in the overhead fixture came   
on without incident, the other burnt out with an electric pop and a flash of light. Grimm sighed.   
"That's about how my day has been going." He looked at his student. Alejo's broad cheeks were   
scattered with patches of dark red, like a bad allergic reaction. Involuntary tears from the cold   
gathered in the corners of his eyes. "Can I entice you with a hot drink? You look like you're   
freezing."   
  
"Yes. The temperature is much cold." Alejo unzipped his jacket, reached inside and pulled out a   
small package wrapped in a plastic grocery bag. "Professor, here iss the book that you borrowed   
to me." He unwrapped a small black text and handed it to the professor.   
  
"Lent," Grimm corrected automatically. "It's 'borrow from' and 'loan to'."   
  
"Lent," Alejo repeated.   
  
"Or 'loaned'," the professor said, stressing the final 'd'. "'Loan' typically refers to money, while   
'lend' is what I did with this book." He rubbed the bridge of his nose in thought. "The two words   
used to be quite separate in meaning, but appear to be converging into one word now with   
several forms. I'm sure some would argue that the convergence is near completion, and that 'lent'   
is the current past tense of 'loan'." He looked up, suddenly aware of his rambling. His gaze caught   
Alejo's, and Grimm felt his face warm. "Never mind. That's a different topic for a different day . .   
. and class."   
  
Alejo nodded. English language history had never been part of his studies. Both of them knew   
that even if Alejo had understood, he still wouldn't be able to comment. "How iss your   
daughter?" he asked instead. Though they had never met, Sara's health was a topic of constant   
concern amongst his students.   
  
Grimm hefted the book, idly flipping through the pages. "She's not getting better." He grimaced.   
That was all he could say with any certainty. None of the assorted professionals who had seen   
Sara could give a definitive diagnosis about what was wrong with her; none of them could offer   
any hope for her future.   
  
A piece of folded paper stuck between the last page and the back cover of the book slipped out   
and fluttered to the floor. Grimm bent down and retrieved it. It was a photocopy of the front page   
of a newspaper: "The Virginia Post". "Local Girl Vanishes," the headline announced. Little else   
of note had happened that day; the headline took up the center front page. Below the headline   
was a reprint of the picture of a young, black girl, mid-teens, flanking the column of text that   
made up the story. The girl looked uncomfortable in what was obviously a school photo. The   
picture's ink was smudged, as if someone had touched the original too often.   
  
"What's this?" he asked, turning the paper around so Alejo could see it.   
  
"I don't know. I not see previous." Alejo's eyes flicked over the text. "Maybe is Eric's paper. He   
was read book too. He was read all books. Was spend many times in the bibliotecha. Was no   
sleep . . . sleep . . . sleeping?" He looked up at Grimm for confirmation.   
  
Grimm acknowledged the correct form with a nod, then refolded the page and stuck it in his back   
pocket. "He wasn't sleeping? Insomnia?"   
  
Alejo shrugged. "Not say. He say have bad dreams."   
  
Grimm turned and walked down the hallway to the kitchen, motioning behind him for Alejo to   
follow. As he passed them, he flipped on every light switch along the way. "Have you heard from   
him?" He set the book down on the kitchen counter.   
  
"No. He no answer the door. I knock many times, all the days."   
  
Grimm frowned. "That's worrisome. Usually when a student misses that many classes, he calls or   
emails or something. Or someone calls on his behalf. I haven't even received a drop notice. Tea,   
coffee or hot chocolate?"   
  
"Hot chocolate," Alejo answered.   
  
"Good choice. Take a seat. You can hang your jacket on the chair." He watched as Alejo   
complied, choosing the seat at the kitchen table closest to the stove, then he started gathering the   
chocolate making ingredients.   
  
He was putting the water on to boil when movement out of the corner of his eye caught Grimm's   
attention. He turned to see his daughter standing framed in the doorway. She was dressed in   
worn, but clean, grey sweats, her shoulders hunched as through trying to draw into herself. Her   
gaze fluttered around the kitchen, not seeming to see anything, or even to recognize where she   
was.   
  
The kitchen chair scraped, then Alejo was standing at Grimm's side. Grimm was suddenly   
conscious of how tall the younger man was, towering a good six inches above him.   
  
"Mi chica suena," Alejo breathed, slipping into his native Spanish. 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2   
  
"Your dream girl?" Grimm translated. He wanted to face his student--years of lecturing had left   
him uneasy talking to someone he wasn't looking at--but he didn't dare take his eyes off Sara. Her   
behavior around other people had become unpredictable, sometimes even dangerous. He   
positioned himself between Alejo and Sara, ready to catch her if she tried to attack this student as   
she had done to another just a week ago.   
  
"This last night, I dream of her," Alejo said.   
  
"You dreamed about her?" Grimm was too stunned to be angry. While he well knew the kind of   
dreams teenage boys usually had about teenage girls, the notion that Alejo had dreamed of   
someone he had never met with enough detail to recognize her piqued his curiosity.   
  
"Si. In my dream, her hair iss long."   
  
Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see Alejo miming a hair length just reaching his elbow.   
Sara's hair had been that long once . . . when she had been well. Now it was shorn close to her   
head to prevent her from ripping it out during her all too frequent panic attacks.   
  
"She talk to me," Alejo continued. He hesitated, then shook his head. "No remember what she   
say."   
  
"Are you sure it was Sara?"   
  
"Si. Yes. I no have doubt." Indeed, he did sound very sure. "Look. She know me also."   
  
At some point, Sara's unfocused, wandering gaze had settled on Alejo. There was no expression   
on her face, no indication of any emotion or desire in her stance, yet she was clearly looking at--and seeing--the young man.   
  
"I should take her upstairs," Grimm said. "She doesn't do too well with people anymore.   
Especially strangers." He paused, not sure how much information was too much. Most of the   
school knew that something had happened to his daughter--his daughters--over the summer. Both   
the town paper and the university paper had covered it extensively for over a week, then dropped   
coverage when no new information was forthcoming. The interesting information wasn't   
believable, and the believable information wasn't interesting, especially when it failed to develop   
or resolve in short order. "I'm afraid we don't know what's wrong with her," he supplied,   
answering the question he knew Alejo would be too polite to ask. "Some of the doctors think it's   
a nervous breakdown of some variety."   
  
Alejo didn't respond. He was locked in some silent communication with Sara, neither moving.   
  
Then it broke. Whatever had been happening between them ceased; perhaps a decision had been   
made. With mincing footsteps, Sara began walking around the edge of the room. She moved   
towards Alejo but stayed next to the wall instead of cutting straight across. Frowning, Grimm   
headed over to intercept his daughter.   
  
He took hold of her hand to lead her from the room. With an uncanny strength, she jerked her   
hand from his grasp and pressed her back to the wall as if to get as far away from him as   
possible. She tried to continue towards her goal, but found her way blocked by a wooden cabinet   
on one side and her father on the other.   
  
Sara sank to the floor then and, meshing herself to the cabinet, began to rock. Her fists were   
bunched up next to her ears, arms pressed against her face.   
  
"I'm sorry you had to see this," Grimm said without turning around. He didn't want Alejo to see   
the pain he knew was on his face. "You should leave. I'll have to give you a rain check on the hot   
chocolate." Behind him, he could hear Alejo gathering up his coat, the chair scraping back into   
position under the table. He waited until his student left the room, then sat down on the tile   
across from his daughter and prepared to wait with her until she was ready to move. "Someday,"   
he promised, "we're going to laugh about this."   
  
They sat together, separated, the young professor in his suit and tie, and the teenager wearing the   
female version of his face and too-large sweats.   
  
"I can hear the ocean," she replied, speaking to the floor.   
  
"I know, honey," he answered sadly, because that was all she knew how to say anymore.   
  
****   
  
Famous last words, Lisa thought, as she closed the door to her dorm room. It was just after 1:30   
in the morning. The coffee shop had closed and the library wouldn't become 24 hour until next   
week.   
  
She slung her backpack into the corner and rolled back her head, trying to loosen some of the   
tenseness in her neck and back. Tanya still wasn't back, she noted, her eyes falling on the empty   
top bunk. That wasn't much of a surprise. She might wander in eventually, or it might be days   
before she returned. Like the time she ducked out for a bag of Doritos. Six days later, she   
returned, with no clear explanation of where she'd been. And without the chips.   
  
The answering machine was flashing. Lisa crossed over to the heavy wooden desk on which it sat   
and pushed the playback button. There were five messages.   
  
"Lisa, honey," the first one said, in the careful tones of someone doing her best to stay calm. "I   
know you're probably in class. Call me when you get back."   
  
She cringed; it was her mom. The only person who couldn't take "we're not in; we'll return your   
call when we are" as an acceptable reason for someone not to answer the phone. She had   
forgotten to call her mom.   
  
"Dear, I had to step out for a minute. Hopefully, I didn't miss your call. It's dinner time and I was   
hoping to talk to you. It's so hard to sit here and eat at this big table without you. Please call   
back."   
  
She glanced at her watch. It was far too late to call her mom now. It was possible that her mom   
was still up, still pacing around like she always did. Lisa could practically smell the brownies   
baking. On the chance that she wasn't however . . . and, Lisa'd been warned about making early   
morning phone calls unless there was a hospital involved. With a beep, the machine started   
playing the next message.   
  
"Lisa, where are you? It's been dark for hours. It gets dark so early this time of year and I just   
worry about you so much, having to walk across that great big campus by yourself in the dark.   
You just never know what can happen to a pretty girl like you."   
  
Beep.   
  
The next message started, and there was nothing calm about her mom's voice anymore, fake or   
otherwise. "Young lady, I don't care if you're laying dead in a ditch. You'd better pick up that   
phone-"   
  
Lisa slammed her hand on the delete button. "You have no new messages," the machine   
informed her, in its polite, assembled speech.   
  
"Thank you," Lisa breathed.   
  
How many times did they have to go through this? They'd been through finals twice before. The   
first time, Lisa sat her mother down and explained what was going on. The problem with a   
mother who never went to college herself was that she couldn't, or refused, to understand the   
nature of the beast.   
  
"It means I'm going to be out a lot," Lisa remembered trying to explain. "I'll be at the library."   
  
Arms akimbo, her mother answered, "And there are no phones at the library?"   
  
"Of course there are phones. In the lobby. I won't be in the lobby. I'll be where the books are. If I   
have to go down to the lobby to call you all the time, I'll never get any studying done. I'm   
eighteen years old," she said. "You should trust me to take care of myself."   
  
A look of hurt crossed her mother's face. With a rush of words, Mrs. Davis covered it up. "I trust   
you. You know that. It's the people out there," she said, with a sweep of her arm, "who are trying   
to take my little girl away from me. I don't trust them. You need to be careful."   
  
The conversation didn't end there. It never did.   
  
As much as she loved her, Lisa decided that her mother was just going to have to wait until   
tomorrow for that phone call. She grabbed her Anatomy text book from the bookshelf and settled   
down at her desk to look over the diagram of muscles before going to bed.   
  
****   
  
That night Lisa dreamed. One minute she'd been staring at the Anatomy text; the next she was   
standing in a child's bedroom, one she'd never seen before. The walls were painted a soft yellow   
with a bright floral runner framing the ceiling. Two beds occupied most of the room, each   
covered in a thick white duvet with lace trim, barely visible through a mound of lacy pillows and   
stuffed animals. The room felt bright and cheerful and unimportant.   
  
Feeling too awake to be asleep, she was reminded of another dream once: Of the first time she   
teleported, and the first time she met another teleporter. The beaches of Tapahini bore no   
resemblance to this space. Not physically. But there was an overwhelming sense of deja vu. She'd   
been here before, wherever 'here' was.   
  
"Hello?" she called, her voice sounding distant. "Is anyone here?"   
  
She strained her ears, and heard nothing. If this was a dream, it was unlike any she could   
remember. Digging her nails into her other forearm, she held it until the grasping hand started to   
tremble. Nothing else changed.   
  
"Okay . . . ." she said, as she started looking for anything that would answer any of the six basic   
questions.   
  
Her eyes found the door, a simple wooden affair. She reached out to grasp the doorknob.   
  
"That's not the way," someone said. "Not the way at all."   
  
Lisa turned a circle, but found no speaker. The room was just as empty and still as when she first   
arrived, even the lacy drapes in the windows didn't move. The sound seemed to begin and end in   
her head. But this wasn't telepathy. Telepathy didn't use words, not as such. For the Tomorrow   
People to say that one talked telepathically or heard someone's telepathic voice was an   
inadequate description at best, but it was the only way they knew. This sounded like someone   
talking directly into her head, like listening to herself think. She realized that was also how her   
own calls had sounded.   
  
"Come out!" Lisa demanded. "I'm tired of this game."   
  
"This isn't a game," the voice returned. The air to the left of the door shimmered, thickened into a   
teenaged girl with long tea brown hair and china blue eyes. The girl looked pained to see Lisa,   
her eyebrows drawn and face twisted as if she were hurting. "How did you get here?"   
  
"You're asking *me*?" Lisa responded.   
  
The girl disappeared back into the air, then coalesced on the right side of the door. "You can hear   
me?" she asked, crossing her arms protectively in front of her.   
  
"Should I not be able to?"   
  
The girl tilted her head to the side before saying, "No one's ever answered before."   
  
Big surprise, Lisa thought. The girl didn't seem to understand when a joke had gone on too long.   
"What are *you* doing here?" she asked. With any luck, she'd get a straight answer and then they   
could all go home and get on with their lives.   
  
"Waiting."   
  
Lisa sighed. No luck. "Waiting for what?"   
  
The girl faded out, then back in. She didn't change positions, but she gave an impression of   
movement, as if she were shaking.   
  
When no answer was forthcoming, Lisa gestured to the door. "Why don't you leave?" She   
reached for the knob again, and was stopped by something that felt like a slap on the wrist,   
though the girl still hadn't moved and she could sense no one else present.   
  
"No!" came the panicked response. "You can't go there, Lisa Davis. Don't go there!"   
  
Lisa blinked. The next question caught in her throat as she realized what the girl had said: The   
girl had known her name. Had this been a normal dream, that wouldn't have been interesting at   
all. But this had never been a normal dream, if it was a dream at all. Lisa didn't have to search to   
find the girl's name in return: Sara Grimm. She only knew of one context where names where   
exchanged without introduction. Tomorrow People always recognized one another. Maybe it was   
an offshoot of their telepathic abilities, or maybe it was something else.   
  
Then, before Lisa could figure out how to respond to the last statement, the dream was gone and   
she was laying awake in her bed. 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3   
  
It seemed like only a few minutes later that Lisa was awakened again. The sun was coming in her   
window full force, like it was aiming for her, and something was making a dreadful racket. She   
slapped blearily at her alarm clock. The noise stopped, then started again; it was the phone.   
Stumbling out of bed, she grabbed at the phone and mumbled a sleepy "'lo" into the receiver.   
  
"Are you trying to scare me to death, Young Lady. You like near sent me to an early grave."   
  
"Morning, Mom," Lisa answered, trying to force some of the sleepiness from her voice.   
  
"Where were you last night?" her mother responded. "I called and I called. Where was your   
decency to call me back? I raised you better than that."   
  
Lisa took a deep breath. "I was out studying, Mom. I told you I'd probably be out late. The   
semester's almost over, remember?"   
  
"Twenty-six hours, Lisa Christine--"   
  
"Mom--"   
  
"--I spent twenty-six hours in labor with you,--"   
  
"Mom--"   
  
"--and you can't even see fit to pick up the telephone and let me know that you're all right!" There   
was banging in the background, like pots and pans being stacked together.   
  
"Mother! I'm going to be home soon for a whole month. You have to stop worrying about me so   
much. I can take care of myself." Lisa glanced at the clock, then had to look again to register the   
time. She'd slept through her first class and was ten minutes from being late to her second. If she   
hurried she could grab a shower, but breakfast was out of the question.   
  
"--so many dangers out there," her mother was saying. "Not a day goes by that there isn't another   
sad story in the news. You are locking your door at night? You know you're supposed to do that.   
Just remember what happened in that sorority house at Florida State University. The only girl   
who survived was the one whose door was locked." Her mother paused for a breath and Lisa   
jumped in.   
  
"Mom, I'll call you back later, okay? I have to get going; I overslept."   
  
"Don't stay up so late tonight," her mother warned. "If you don't get your beauty sleep, you're   
going to make yourself sick."   
  
"I will," she promised. "Don't worry." She hung up the phone without waiting for a goodbye. If   
she dared stay on the phone until one was spoken, she'd miss her second class too.   
  
Ten minutes later, showered, she was running out of the door for her second class of the day.   
There was no way she'd be on time, but at least she'd be there. Not until she was sitting in class   
did she recall the dream; the reason she had overslept.   
  
Lisa had spent the better part of three years not being a Tomorrow Person. The intensity and   
attention that some people dedicated to their jobs, families -- to the important things in life --   
she'd dedicated to this task. By no means had it been an easy one. The other Tomorrow People   
were the kind of friends most people could only wish for -- it wasn't often that one found friends   
who were willing to sacrifice their lives for your own -- and she wanted to disown them. On   
those occasions when her reserve faltered and she started to forget her reasons, all she had to do   
was look at her driver's license. At the picture that belonged to her and the tiny black type that   
spelled out a name that didn't.   
  
It was probably over-reacting. Her mother was known to do that, and it was her decision to take   
up General Damon's offer. But it had been necessary at the time. Not so much as to prevent   
others from coming after them. If anyone had wanted to find them, Lisa was sure a new name   
wouldn't have been much of a hindrance. No, the change was so they could allow themselves to   
feel safe.   
  
The Davis' became the Youngs; they moved to a new state, and tried desperately to recreate what   
they'd had before the talent show. At times it was rather like acting out parts in a private play.   
And when her mother woke up with nightmares, as she sometimes did, or when Lisa came home   
to the smell of baking brownies, she only had to invoke the Name to make her mom feel   
comfortable again.   
  
"They're not looking for the Youngs, Mother," she would say.   
  
And her mother, who was lying shaking in bed or standing at the kitchen counter up to her   
elbows in flour and cocoa, would digest that information and smile and say, "Of course not. Just   
be careful."   
  
'Be careful' which meant 'and don't do anything to change that'.   
  
She had promised herself she wouldn't. And she was good about keeping it, mostly. It got harder   
after she moved out, during her first lonely weeks at college. It was worse even than when they'd   
changed their name and left a whole life behind. The option was there for her to go home, but it   
was one she couldn't exercise. She didn't have a car, and she wasn't about to teleport. She'd had   
terrible homesickness that semester, had even found herself missing brownies. She and her   
roommate hadn't had much to say to one another. It was easy to go for days without saying a   
word to anyone. In those times she found herself wondering how Adam, Megabyte and Kevin   
were doing. Wondering if they'd ever figured out where the ship came from and who it belonged   
to; if there were any other Tomorrow People.   
  
She'd wondered, but she hadn't acted.   
  
So, it really figured.   
  
Because Adam was waiting in her room when she returned from class.   
  
Lisa stopped short in the doorway, hand still on the knob. Adam had changed.   
  
He was older, of course, which was somehow a surprise in itself. She'd only known him for a few   
very intense days, but it didn't seem quite right that the person sitting cross-legged on her floor,   
thumbing through one of her text books, should look different than the face burned into her   
memory. He'd cut his hair, and his chin looked weaker than she remembered. But he still seemed   
jittery, a feeling of too much energy for one human being. He had the same quality about him as   
a soldier, always on guard, especially when appearing the most defenseless.   
  
"Your roommate let me in," he explained, by way of greeting, then added, "She seems nice."   
  
Lisa frowned, still trying to figure out what was happening. Adam being in her room was   
something she hadn't experienced since, well, ever. She hadn't seen him outside the spaceship   
since she became Lisa Young. Out of that context, he was all but a stranger. "Um, hi," she said   
warily. "I hope you didn't do anything that I have to explain," she added, depositing her backpack   
and jacket on the floor. Did anyone else have to worry about people appearing out of thin air, she   
wondered briefly, before it occurred to her that that was the least of her problems. Later, her   
roommate would want to know all the details -- the normal ones anyway -- who the dark-haired   
Australian was, how Lisa knew him, how come she'd never mentioned him before. From there it   
was bound to get worse.   
  
"Not this time," Adam responded. He met her eyes, a barely concealed grin playing around his   
lips.   
  
Lisa hesitated for a moment longer before allowing herself to smile back. She forgot that   
underneath all the worry and responsibility, Adam had a humorous side. His jokes were always   
the most successful since they were the least expected. It was the side of him she knew least well,   
but probably better than anyone else. At least, there had been a time once when she could say   
that.   
  
"Yeah, well I'd like to keep it that way." She forced the wariness from her voice before saying the   
last. He knew full well how she felt; there was no reason to be rude about it. And to think that   
once she'd questioned what interest the CIA could have in them.   
  
Lisa shut the door and leaned back against it, the immediate small talk used up. Adam was in her   
room for a reason; she wasn't eager to find out what it was. Since the day she'd said goodbye, he   
hadn't once violated that request by coming to her. That he was here was just more proof she   
didn't want that another phase of her life was coming to an end.   
  
"We haven't seen you in a long time," he finally said. He gave a last rifle of the text book's pages,   
then set it on the carpet and rose in a fluid motion to his feet. The room was small and filled with   
dual sets of heavy wooden furniture. Lisa shifted on her feet. The short distance between she and   
Adam was already getting uncomfortable.   
  
She was already against the door, or she would have taken another step back. Instead, she stepped   
around him, began to straighten up the small amount of clutter that had accumulated during the   
week. She reached for a pile of notebooks on her desk, stacked haphazardly together, and was   
stilled when Adam touched her arm.   
  
"Are you okay, Lisa? Your mom?" She could hear the concern in his voice, see it echoed in his   
every gesture. Adam needed to take care of others. She didn't have to be a mind reader to know   
that he wondered if he'd succeeded, if he'd made the right decision all those years ago.   
  
Lisa looked down at the notebooks her hand rested on. They had suffered for the semester, the   
corners worn and bent, fourteen weeks of ink doodles masking the original bright colors. "Mom's   
good. She worries. She mails me tins of brownies every couple of weeks."   
  
"I thought she might," he said. "Mothers always have a hard time letting their children go."   
  
"Especially mine," she murmured.   
  
Adam grinned as he nodded in empathy, then his tone turned more questioning, as if he wasn't   
sure what topics were safe and which would scare her off again. "Do you like it here?   
University?"   
  
"Yeah," she said, brightening. "I do. My biggest excitement is finals, but that's kind of the point. I   
mean, don't *you* ever wish it could go back to how it was before?"   
  
There was a slight pause in which he glanced down at his feet, then he said, "It can't."   
  
"It can too," she replied, sounding childish even to her own ears. "My life was good. There was   
no one trying to kill me, or experiment on me. Did you know that in my first sixteen years, I was   
never once kidnaped? Taken hostage for any reason? And I didn't know anyone else who was   
either."   
  
"And now?"   
  
"Now is even better," she said. "I have everything I always wanted. I have college, and friends,   
and I know where my mom is, and I know she's safe." She gave a short laugh. "I have a   
boyfriend. An actual boyfriend."   
  
"You're lonely," he said.   
  
"I don't have to wake up every morning wondering who's going to try to kill me today," she   
retorted.   
  
Another short pause, while Adam glanced out the window at the deceptively bright day. It looked   
sunny and warm, but was in fact bitter cold with a harsh breeze that had burned Lisa's face as she   
walked home from class. "But you do," he finally said.   
  
"I was doing fine," she said, intending her words to sound cold, and ending up with mournful.   
"Why are you here?"   
  
Another quick look out the window, then he turned to her all with all seriousness.   
Adam-the-leader stood before her. He raked a hand through his short hair. "Lisa, the ship . . . it   
wants something. Something from one of us."   
  
Us.   
  
Sometimes she hated that word. It never seemed to include her in anything she wanted to be part   
of.   
  
She didn't answer. She did not want to talk about this. She straightened the notebooks again, then   
turned to the bed and pulled up the crumpled sheets on the bottom bunk, doing what she could to   
make the bed without crawling onto it. That task done, she turned back to Adam who was still   
there, staring at her patiently. He hadn't even changed positions.   
  
"I hoped you might know what," he said. "I've already talked to the others, and they're just as   
blank as I am."   
  
This was her chance, she realized. She should tell him about the dream, about meeting Sara. She   
had found another Tomorrow Person, after all. Another in a strain of humanity so new all the   
members could still be numbered on two hands. However, new Tomorrow People usually   
appeared off the island's shore, their first teleport ending in a salt water bath. They did not appear   
in dreams. Maybe he could tell her what it meant.   
  
She had to laugh at that thought, or she would have if she had been alone and certain that no one   
could hear her. After all this time, and all the distance, she was thinking-- seriously thinking--   
about letting them back in. Because she wasn't stupid enough to think it would stop at Adam.   
Letting him back meant letting all of them back. It meant going back to a time in her life she had   
no desire to remember, much less re-experience.   
  
'Be careful' her mom said.   
  
Lisa was pretty sure this didn't qualify as careful.   
  
He'd barely been here ten minutes and she was already weakening. Her instincts told her to turn   
to him, to trust him, because he would know the answers. Adam had broken out into being a   
Tomorrow Person first, lived with his powers the longest, and experienced the most. But she   
wasn't far behind. She'd acquired her powers only weeks after him, and she was only a couple   
years younger. She should be able to take care of any problems on her own; what Adam knew,   
she should know.   
  
And still that part of her kept trying to tell her what she should do, without considering what it   
would cost. She should let them in, it said. There was a reason. She should trust Adam, it said.   
There was a good reason. She should tell him because he might know what to do next.   
  
"Lisa," he prompted.   
  
But she knew what came next. If she said anything, he'd convince her to return to the island with   
him. Then they'd be up to their ears in the kind of adventure that some people spend their lives   
seeking, and Lisa had spent hers avoiding.   
  
She averted her eyes to the worn school books again. There, scribbled in green ink was her name.   
The one that wasn't hers. She wondered if Adam would understand that too, if he would   
understand how much he was asking her to give up. Again.   
  
"Adam," she began, and stopped. How could she express herself? How could she make him   
understand, when she wasn't even sure she understood? She glanced out the window at the   
students passing by, the lucky, lucky students who didn't even realize how lucky they were. None   
of them, she was sure, would ever have to worry about this kind of conversation. They, at least,   
had problems of the predictable kind. Their problems had solutions, well known and practiced,   
because someone else had had the same kind of problem, and someone before that, and someone   
before that.   
  
A chime broke into her thoughts; the clock tower announcing the hour.   
  
"Adam," she tried again. "I--" The tower quieted, the slack filled now with the increased volume   
of chatter as students poured from the surrounding buildings. "Did that just ring four times?"   
  
"I think so," he said. "I wasn't counting."   
  
Her shoulders suddenly relaxed, her breath escaping in a quick gasp. "I have class. I have to go to   
class. Now." She didn't even try to hide her relief. Saved by the bell.   
  
"Lisa, this is important."   
  
"I know. We'll talk about it later, okay?" Her eyebrows went up, countenance expressing a silent   
plea. "I promise," she added. "I can't miss class; my mother would kill me if she found out." She   
grabbed the backpack and winter coat that still sat by the door and rushed out, leaving Adam   
behind.   
  
In the hallway, a mural of snowmen and ice skaters was being created along the cinder block   
walls and wooden doors in preparation for a holiday season that would leave the building closed   
and empty with no one around to look at or enjoy the effort being put into the decorating. Pairs of   
girls were scattered up and down the hallway involved in the construction paper and glitter   
project. Lisa nodded at one of the pairs, two girls she recognized from a class but couldn't place   
names to, and headed towards the exit at the opposite end of the long hall.   
  
"Lisa, wait!" Adam padded up behind her.   
  
"No," she said. "I'm going to be late." She struggled into her jacket as she went, juggling her   
backpack from one arm to the other as she tried to get everything on in the correct order before   
hitting the outside and whatever whims of the weather awaited.   
  
"Yeah! You go, Lisa!" the two girls yelled, drawing the attention of the scattered others who had   
been at work. Two other girls cheered loudly. The floor as a whole never acted much as if they   
liked boys or anything to do with them. Yet this was the same floor that, when a fire alarm had   
gone off at 3:00 in the morning on their second day of school, had more boys exit the rooms than   
girls. That was only the first time that Lisa had huddled out on the lawn in her pajamas, hugging   
herself in a fit of shyness, and wishing that whomever had failed to do his or her job in keeping   
the all-girls residence hall all-girls would be dismissed on the spot.   
  
"Wait, please," Adam begged. He grabbed her left sleeve as she was trying to slide her arm   
through it and pulled it back off. She wrenched it out of his hands and turned to face him, the   
jacket still dangling half on.   
  
"Class, Adam," she stated, nodding her head to show that he was also supposed to nod his head   
and agree with what she said. "That's the part where I leave this building and go to another one to   
sit in a crowded room and get lectured at about something that has no relevance to my life   
whatsoever, except that it's required, and as they say: to do the stuff you want to do, sometimes   
you have to do the stuff you don't want to it. Only, I'm pretty sure that "stuff" isn't the word that   
usually gets used, and I want to go to medical school. Okay?" She turned to continue towards the   
door, and ran right into her roommate.   
  
The older woman, a junior to Lisa's sophomore, posed in the hall like a model at the end of the   
runway. She wore skin tight black jeans and a black roll necked sweater. Static electricity fluffed   
her dark brown hair in a halo around her head, yet she somehow managed to look as if that was   
exactly what she had intended her hair to do.   
  
"Omigod, *you* have been keeping secrets from me!" Tanya announced, letting her gaze brush   
the length of Adam's body in a way that was neither decorous nor polite. "Here I think there's not   
much to you, then *he* shows up at the door," she continued, the near shouting level of her voice   
drawing everyone's attention to the scene.   
  
Adam muttered something behind her, and for once Lisa felt like they were on the same side. Her   
immediate instinct was to shush her roommate and deny any wrong doing. Instead, she narrowed   
her eyes, putting as much steel into the expression as she knew how. It was hopeless to try to   
silence Tanya, but it was damning to respond to her. The girl treated conversation like catching a   
fish: casting out topics until one was seized, then reeling it in and drowning it in air until it died.   
  
"How could you keep something that . . . gorgeous . . . hidden? Unless you were trying to keep   
him for yourself. You weren't trying to keep him for yourself?" Tanya continued, volume   
unmoderated. She talked at Lisa as if Adam weren't standing right there. "Is he seeing anyone?   
Are you two a thing? Is he gay? He's not gay, is he? Please tell me he's straight and available."   
  
"Adam," Lisa whispered over her shoulder, "Escape. Now."   
  
He nodded once and took a step back towards the dorm room. He would duck in there, Lisa   
figured, and teleport back to the island, and Tanya would be left forever wondering how he got   
away. It was almost justice.   
  
"Do you like coffee?" Tanya turning on Adam, who looked like he was ready to teleport away   
regardless of the audience. "I know this *great* coffee place. It's over on Third street. Do you go   
to school here? You know where Third street is, right?" She waved a pointed finger in an array of   
different directions that did nothing to clarify which direction Third street might be in. "On the   
corner of Forrest and Third. Oh, I can't remember what the place is called. Lisa, what's that place   
called on Forrest and Third. Or is it Graham and Third? It might be Graham and Third."   
  
"It's Fourth street," Lisa found herself answering, almost against her will. "And it closed last   
semester."   
  
Tanya looked momentarily disappointed, then sized up Adam again "But you still like coffee?   
You look like the kind of guy who just *loves* coffee. French Silk Mocha. You don't look like a   
cappuccino kind of guy."   
  
"Coffee?" Adam stuttered.   
  
"I knew it," Tanya announced, triumphantly. "Definitely mochas. French Silk Mochas. They're so   
rich, and those chocolate shavings on top, mmmm."   
  
"I-I don't--." He looked helplessly at Lisa.   
  
Fine. Lisa stepped forward. "Tanya, Adam's just visiting and right now he has to go away. Far   
away. He doesn't drink coffee, he doesn't go to school here, and he's not interested in you." While   
she talked, Adam was backing towards the dorm room. She waited until Adam had gotten close   
enough to the room to be out of firing range before finishing, in the sweetest voice she could   
muster, "Fair enough?"   
  
Tanya paused for just a second, a long second in which she seemed to be processing Lisa's words.   
One of her hands crept up and tugged at the longer of the three earrings dangling from her right   
ear. "You mean you *are* dating?" she asked, yanking on the earring again and not seeming at all   
surprised. "Are you lovers?"   
  
Without answering, Lisa finished shrugging her jacket on, zipped up the front, then settled the   
backpack in place, its weight reassuring on her shoulders. "I'm going this way," she told Tanya,   
pointing towards the exterior doors at the end of the hall. She pushed past Tanya, knowing the   
girl wouldn't step aside without prompting, and walked towards her destination, and her freedom.   
Getting outside, continuing her schedule as it had been every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for   
the last semester, would be normal. It would be what she came here to achieve. She hoped,   
somehow, Adam would also escape back to relative safety on the other side of the world, where   
he would stay, never, never to return.   
  
"It's not fair!" Tanya lamented behind her. "Your life is just so cool. You are so lucky." 


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4   
  
The room was all but gone this time, faded to a pressing, infinite grayness. Only the door   
remained substantial.   
  
"It figures," Lisa sighed. But it wasn't a surprise, not really. Wishful thinking had been all that let   
her convince herself that the first dream was a one-off. "So," she added, throwing her arms open   
wide, "How do you want to play this? I'm not going to stand here and whimper, so you can just   
forget that idea. I set my alarm, though. I wasn't about to hang out here all night."   
  
There was no response, no hint at all that anything or anyone heard her. The air in this space   
wasn't any more real than the light that seemed to fill the space; the curtains couldn't twitch nor   
the light flicker in any way that could even be interpreted as meaningful. There was no way to   
tell if someone else was present.   
  
"You're going to make this difficult, aren't you?" she called.   
  
If Sara was listening, she didn't answer. Lisa remained alone in the room that was a shadow of   
what it had been.   
  
"Come out, come out wherever you are," she sing-songed. Her voice rang in the stillness.   
"Midnight, starbright," she continued under her breath. "I wish I see a ghost tonight." Memories   
sprang to mind of many a childhood evening playing the combination hide-and-seek and tag   
game. The gray dreamscape lent itself to imagining a foggy night, although it lacked the flashes   
of lightening bugs or the playful screams of her peers seeking to navigate in the dark. "And if I   
do, I'll take my shoe and knock it black and blue.   
  
"Ghost in the graveyard!" she sang out: the name of the game, but also the warning to the   
designated "ghost" that their time to hide was up.   
  
As if on cue, Sara appeared. She, too, seemed faded around the edges. A kind of weariness that   
seeped through every movement, and couldn't be pin-pointed to any one description. "You came   
back," she said. The girl leaned in to peer at her face. Lisa saw her reflection in the other girl's   
eyes, and had no doubt that the reverse was true.   
  
"Yeah, want to tell me why?"   
  
Instead of answering, Sara flashed out of existence.   
  
"Great!" Hands on her hips, Lisa glared out at the emptiness. She waited for several minutes for   
Sara to return, until she started to imagine that the grayness was closing in around her. Then she   
started to pace, to count off steps. To try to force dimension in its absence.   
  
Eventually she realized that no matter how far she seemed to walk, no ground was covered. Nor   
was she tiring out. It was no more than she expected for a dream, but she'd already had ample   
proof that this wasn't just another dream. Through it all, the door didn't move.   
  
She stopped in mid-step, caught with that thought. The door hadn't changed position relative to   
her. No matter how much she paced, how far she seemed to walk, the door was still in the same   
relative location. Even her attempts to circle it were met without result.   
  
"Great," she repeated, but without the fight. "So what am I supposed to do *now*?" The last was   
directed up, in the general direction of a God that Lisa wasn't sure she believed in.   
  
She felt her attention redirected to the portal; the same invisible force that had stopped her from   
opening the door before now moved her head so she had a clear view of it. While Lisa watched,   
the air in front of it thickened, then became a person. A Hispanic teen, with the broad, high-cheek   
boned face of someone who no doubt had ancestors among the indigenous population.   
  
He was turning in place, clearly trying to reason what he was seeing. He just as clearly didn't see   
Lisa. His gaze skipped over her, just another spirit.   
  
"How come he can't see me?" she breathed, more to herself than anyone else. She didn't expect   
an answer, but the silence of this place begged to be filled.   
  
Lisa watched with morbid fascination as the new arrival explored the scene. She couldn't help but   
wonder if he saw the same emptiness as she, or if his mind was filling in the blanks somehow.   
Maybe he saw the bedroom that she'd seen on her first visit. Was it just the previous night?   
  
Did he understand that this was more than just a dream, she wondered. In a bed back at the   
school that had once felt so safe and normal her body lay in sleep, but her mind was quite   
conscious of the here and now--such that they were. Although her body was asleep, she was quite   
awake. Yet, there was a certain stiffness about the teen's movements that suggested that he wasn't   
quite aware.   
  
"Sometimes they talk," Sara said, once again standing next to the elder girl as if she'd never left   
her side. "They beg, or yell or pray to God. Some cry. I don't like the ones who cry. Mostly they   
just look around, and then . . ."   
  
The boy reached for the door. His hand never found the knob. Instead, he stepped straight though   
what had appeared to be solid wood. He didn't come out the other side.   
  
". . . they go away."   
  
The act itself seemed so innocent, so painless. The teenager had been there, and then he walked   
through the door. And Lisa knew with utmost certainty that this was not a good thing. Sara   
sounded sad, and perhaps a little lonely as she related the facts. Lisa was just horrified. She   
rubbed at the goose bumps on her arms. "Ghost in the graveyard," she repeated without humor.   
  
She looked up to see Sara standing at her side. And another thought occurred to her. "Why me?"   
she asked. Why was she standing here watching when another person had been allowed to pass?   
she meant. Why was she allowed to see the boy, when he hadn't been able to see her? If Sara was   
to be believed, what she'd just seen had happened before, and would happen again.   
  
"You answered me," was the murmured response. "No one's ever answered me before."   
  
"Yeah, you said that already."   
  
"They go away. She went away, and she didn't answer me."   
  
Her hands stilled. The topic had somehow jumped beyond the creepy scene that had just played   
out, and Lisa wasn't sure when it happened.   
  
"Lisa Davis," Sara added, her voice child-like and almost too low to be heard. "Make it stop. She   
went away and I . . . ahhh . . . ." The sound turned into a moan, then escalated into a scream of   
anguish. Sara pressed her arms against her ears, fingers locked behind her head. Dropping to her   
knees, she curled in on herself. Her hair cascaded over her hands and face, hiding her from view,   
offering yet another layer of protection.   
  
"Sara?" Lisa laid a gentle hand on the girl's head.   
  
Sara froze in place, the scream cut off abruptly. For precious seconds the two stood immobile.   
Then Sara pulled back, crawling on her knees. "No. Nonononono." The desperation of the word   
tore into Lisa, the sound of an animal under attack. The sound of a person without knowledge of   
pain, one naive of her right or ability to fight back, being tortured.   
  
Curling her fingers into a fist, Lisa grimaced and took her own step back. Whatever it was, Lisa   
was pretty sure she hadn't started it. But she was sure that she had made it worse.   
  
"There. Will be. No. Touching," Sara choked out. "Not. At all." Then she flickered out of   
existence again.   
  
Lisa couldn't move for a long time after that. Her limbs shook from the rush of adrenaline that   
had no outlet in either fight or flight; her heart pounded in her chest, the beat equipresent in her   
jaw, and deafening in her head.   
  
[Lisa?]   
  
She came awake. Not suddenly, not like waking up from a nightmare. But there was no   
transition. One moment she was sleeping; the next she was awake in her dorm bunk-bed. Her   
sheets had all been kicked down to the foot, and her pillow was squashed in the corner where the   
bed met the wall. From above, the soft snores of her roommate filtered down. It all felt so   
normal, until the dream surfaced in her memory. Then she felt her pulse quicken, and the   
darkness of the room turn a little less friendly. The bed springs creaked as Tanya rolled over, and   
Lisa realized there was no one here she could talk to about the dream. No one who would see it   
as she did.   
  
[Lisa?] she heard again.   
  
She felt the softest touch at the fringes of her mind, and reached out in return.   
  
****   
  
"It wasn't just a dream," Lisa said. "Adam, it felt so *real*."   
  
Lying awake in her bed, she'd felt Adam reaching for her. After their less than amicable   
discussion they day before, she hesitated about accepting the offered help. She had told him to go   
away, after all. She hesitated, but only for a second. Once, the two of them had been the only   
representatives of their race. Then, Adam had needed her and the two had formed a friendship of   
default that promised to become much more. But Lisa's fears interrupted the developing   
relationship, stalled it when she walked away. She had told herself then that she didn't need them   
then, and she had mouthed the same words again one day previous.   
  
Maybe she didn't need Adam's help, but someone else did. Someone who, if it was possible, was   
more frightened than she. And that someone didn't seem to be in any hurry to go away until she   
got that help.   
  
Now Adam regarded her in that soul-searching manner of his, as though looking for the truth   
behind her words. Not that he expected her to lie -- not that any of them could lie to him -- but he   
looked as if to see the things she wasn't ready to admit. Perhaps, hadn't even yet recognized   
herself. "It wasn't just a dream," he confirmed. "I . . . lost track of you." He bowed his head to the   
floor.   
  
In the dim light of the spaceship, his expression was impossible to read. Almost without   
conscious control she felt the clenched control of her mind ease. The power she had first   
struggled against, then ignored, was waking up. Although she never wanted to admit it, the   
Tomorrow People's abilities could be convenient at times.   
  
Her hard-fought-for control relaxed, and for the second time in less than a day she reached out   
with her thoughts to find Adam's. She found nothing. His control was better than she could have   
wished for herself; his thoughts were untouchable.   
  
That wasn't fair. What did she have this power for if she couldn't use it for anything good?   
"What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded, instead, using the recourse she was best familiar   
with.   
  
Adam raised his head. "I can feel you," he admitted, tapping his temple, "here."   
  
She stared at him in silence for several seconds before responding, "You keep track of me?"   
  
"I don't have a choice."   
  
"Wait a second. You spy on me? All the time? And you're just now getting around to mentioning   
this?"   
  
"It's not spying, Lisa. I don't close my eyes and watch you take a shower."   
  
Her eyes widened at the thought, and she opened her mouth as if to say something, but no words   
came out.   
  
"I couldn't even if I wanted to," he cut in, interrupting the brewing outrage. "It doesn't work that   
way. You, Megabyte, Jade. Everyone. You're all here." He tapped his temple again. "Usually," he   
added with a frown. "You know that. Or, you used to.   
  
"I always know where you are, how you're feeling. When a Tomorrow Person dies . . ." he   
squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed hard. ". . . the loss . . . we feel the loss. The part that we   
share . . . is gone."   
  
She nodded silently. "But I didn't die," she said. "I think I would remember that. I can't seem to   
forget the last time it happened."   
  
"No," he agreed. "You didn't die. You just . . . I'm not even sure how to describe it. It's like it   
went blank. You were still there, in my head, but . . . you weren't. I didn't know where you were   
anymore."   
  
"Do you have *any* idea how many people there are in the world who I could wish had the same   
problem?" She pressed the heel of one hand to her forehead and held it, eyes closed, for a long   
moment. The ship hummed and moaned in the background, like it was trying to answer her   
question.   
  
"Okay," she said. "You said the ship wanted something from one of us. Apparently that person is   
me. Here I am." She dropped her hand back to her side, acutely conscious of the slight quiver in   
her fingers that she couldn't seem to bring under control. "This is all your fault," she directed to   
the central column.   
  
It moaned in response, the voices of thousands of generations of Tomorrow People past and yet   
to come trying to speak through alien machinery that had been broken long before the rise of   
earth civilization.   
  
"Okay, but why *me*?" She turned suddenly to face Adam. "Why *now*?"   
  
"Maybe she knows you, goes to your school?" he suggested.   
  
"Too young," Lisa argued. "She couldn't be older than fifteen." Which was true, although there   
had been something about her that seemed much harder. When the girl looked at her, it wasn't   
with the innocence Lisa had come to expect from fifteen-year-olds. Including herself at that age,   
though she had fought hard and often to deny it then.   
  
"Is there anything else you remember. Anything, at all?" Adam was leaning against the wall that   
looked out onto the ocean. He showed no signs of having been awakened by her dream, but there   
were many times Lisa questioned if he slept. She knew he pretty much lived in the spaceship and   
he cared for the Tomorrow People like his own. She didn't know if there was another place he   
called home, or another group of people he called family.   
  
With a shake of her head she answered, "Nothing. The first time, I guess it was her bedroom we   
were in. She mostly just acted strange and cryptic. All this stuff about me being able to hear her,   
*and* she knew my name."   
  
"So she's telepathic."   
  
"No kidding. The second time, well I already told you what happened the second time. And it   
sounded like it's happened to her before, more than once." She sucked in her lower lip, then   
added, "I think maybe he was a Tomorrow Person too."   
  
That got Adam's attention. He looked at her squarely, focused on her with an attention that would   
be frightening coming from anyone else. "How? Can you be sure?"   
  
She returned his gaze, wanting him to understand exactly what this piece of information meant.   
"His name is Alejandro de los Reyes."   
  
"That's why the ship . . . ." Adam gazed off into the distance, his brow furrowed in thought. He   
was dressed as always in a simple, loose-fitting t-shirt and jeans. He should have looked like any   
other young adult. But partially turned, with the dim light catching his profile and casting his face   
into shadows, he looked like anything but.   
  
"Are they Tomorrow People?" Lisa asked when his silence grew too long.   
  
He shook his head. "We haven't had any new break-outs since Rachel." Rachel was the blonde   
American who came into her own during the height of summer a few months back, Lisa   
remembered. "I suppose they could be people who're about to break out," Adam added.   
  
"I don't think so," Lisa responded slowly. "There was something just . . . wrong . . . about this,   
about her. I can't put my finger on it--" she stopped in frustration, searching her thoughts for just   
the right description, and coming up blank. "You'd see it too if you met her."   
  
[So, introduce us,] Adam said, projecting the thought right into her head.   
  
"Don't *do* that," she said, rounding on him with finger upraised.   
  
"You needed to know I'm serious," he answered. "Introduce us."   
  
"Adam, I don't even know if I *can*," she protested. "I mean, what if she doesn't contact me   
again?"   
  
"Do you think she's contacting you?"   
  
Lisa scowled. "What else would you call it?"   
  
He crossed the ship to sit cross-legged in one of the round portals that led out of the main room,   
like a guru sitting in meditation on top of a mountain. Through closed eyes he looked up at the   
ceiling, as if concentrating on a sound he could barely hear. "Maybe you're contacting her," he   
suggested. "Maybe she's a Tomorrow Person from another time or another planet, and you've   
reached out to her." When his eyes opened again, Lisa made sure her face expressed every bit of   
doubt and disgust she could muster. "Maybe not," he conceded, looking a little sheepish.   
  
"No," Lisa said, just to make sure he understood. "There is no way this would be happening if it   
had been up to me to start it. Don't even try to blame me."   
  
"I'm not blaming you."   
  
"Good, then we agree that she's the one causing all the problems. So, how do I make her stop?"   
  
"Well, we have to figure out what she wants," he said, sounding reasonable.   
  
Lisa kicked at some of the sand that covered the space ship floor. "When did it become 'we'? She   
came to me, remember? She's not your problem, yet."   
  
She saw something darken in Adam's eyes, as if he were holding himself responsible for recent   
events; at his failure to protect her from the world she had opted out of. "If she's a Tomorrow   
Person, then she is my problem."   
  
"Okay, so she's your problem. She's my problem. She's generally just a problem. A real problem   
child."   
  
"We need to stop her before something happens," he said.   
  
"What makes you think something is going to happen? Besides the fact that something has   
*already happened*." She heard her voice rising and forced herself to take a deep breath. In a   
more normal volume she added, "I'm sorry, but I'm having a very hard time remembering not to   
panic. I don't like the unexplained, and lately I seem to be surrounded with things I can't explain."   
  
"I understand," he said quietly, twisting his hands together in his lap in a gesture of nervousness   
that didn't seem like one Adam would ever have reason to know. "What if we find Sara and ask   
her?"   
  
That, she thought, was the elder speaking again. No matter how ridiculous a situation they found   
themselves in, Adam was able to establish and maintain the distance necessary to solve it. It was   
one of the elements that made him a good leader. And one of the elements, Lisa thought, that   
made her a lousy follower. Because while everyone else was happily following Adam's course of   
action, she was stuck trying to figure out how things got the way they were to begin with.   
  
There was just one problem.   
  
"How?" she asked.   
  
He shrugged carelessly, like the situation wasn't anywhere near as complicated as they were   
making it seem. "We know her name," he said.   
  
Lisa kicked again at the sand and started drawing concentric patterns with the toe of her shoe.   
"And we're supposed to do what? Look her up in the phone book?"   
  
"Sure."   
  
"Which one? There're probably dozens of Grimms in my town alone and we don't even know if   
she's in my town. We don't even know if she's in my country." Why was she having a bad feeling   
about this? Why did she feel like she was being set up?   
  
Adam shrugged again. "You said she sounded American."   
  
"That's what people say about Megabyte, too." The comeback dropped from her lips, followed by   
the realization that she had squashed any last chance at normalcy. The only kind of investigation   
left was the kind she did not, under any circumstances, want to participate in.   
  
Adam's expression grew intense. Lisa didn't have to be telepathic to see the thoughts and plans   
racing through his mind. Each idea echoed on his face, his expressions shifting faster than Lisa   
could identify and keep up with them. "There is something we can try," he said at last.   
  
"Don't," she interrupted. "Don't you dare suggest a mind merge. I don't even want to hear it!"   
That was something she'd never done, to share one's mind with another person . . . or worse, with   
the space ship . . . so completely that there was no telling where one mind left off and the next   
began. A mind merge was supposed to enhance memories, to bring to light the details that had   
been perceived but not noted. It was also supposed to let one view memories from a different   
perspective. It was an experience she didn't need.   
  
"It may be the only way."   
  
"Or it may be the wrong way. Did you think of that? Adam, I'm part of this because she came to   
me. I don't know if it'll happen again; I can only hope she'll find someone else's head to waltz   
around in tonight."   
  
"You said this was the *second* time she came to you," he pointed out reasonably.   
  
"It had better be the *last* time," she demanded. "I didn't ask for this, and I don't want it. All I   
want is for her to stop."   
  
"Easy," Adam said. "We find out what she wants and we give it to her. Then she won't have to   
come to you anymore."   
  
She stomped her foot down hard. "I am not doing a mind merge."   
  
"Do you have any better ideas?"Adam asked, still sounding too reasonable. He sounded like he   
wanted her suggestions, and wasn't just spitting the question out as a dare he knew she couldn't   
accept.   
  
The quiver in her hands grew stronger and she clasped them behind her back to hide the shaking   
from the one person who wouldn't fail to notice it. "I can't," she said, voice catching.   
  
She could.   
  
"Please?"   
  
Did he see through the lie, she wondered? Could he know the choice he was asking her to make?   
He was asking too much.   
  
"I can't," she repeated.   
  
He didn't respond, verbally or telepathically; she could feel him standing somewhere just inside   
her personal space, hesitating, sizing up the situation and her determination. She almost wished   
he would touch her, place his hand on hers and say something uniquely Adam that would make   
her cave in and go with him. Instead, the silence stretched on. She was just about to look up, to   
apologize for disappointing him again, when she registered the electric charge in the air and flash   
of light that signaled his departing teleport.   
  
"I'm sorry," she said to the empty ship. "I can't."   
  
The moan it responded with left no doubt that it didn't believe her either. 


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5   
  
Professor Greenberg stood up at the blackboard in front of a lecture hall full of students in   
various states of repose. He was well past his prime, with deep creases lining his face, and the   
bulbous, venous nose of someone who'd had more than a few drinks. In one hand he held a piece   
of chalk, in the other an eraser. As fast as he could write, he also erased. The students were   
expected to take their notes in the few microseconds between the creation and destruction of each   
thought.   
  
"The undeniable fact," he lectured, "is that the English language is always changing, always   
growing. While its primary ancestor was the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family, it is   
being raised by a truly global village, each of which has left -- and is leaving -- its mark on this   
linguistic child.   
  
"Some of those marks can be traced to specific places and specific times, others are not so   
obvious. One of the questions on the final might deal with this topic, so listening now would be a   
good idea." He glared out at the lecture hall. Half the approximately 250 seats were empty, but   
weren't supposed to be. From somewhere near the middle of the hall came music, a walkman   
turned up just a notch too loud. The beat that poured from it sounded like the fight scene in a   
kung-fu movie.   
  
Lisa couldn't hear the song well enough to recognize it; she doubted the Professor could hear it at   
all, or he would have kicked the student out of class twenty minutes ago. She shook it off and   
tried to focus on the lecture; her pen rested on the open notebook, all set to take notes as soon as   
she found find a break in the writing-and-erasing that would let her start. She couldn't seem to   
wake up today; couldn't gather the energy to keep up with the pace of the class. Being unable to   
sleep after returning from the Ship that morning, she had tried to get some homework done; she'd   
ended up sitting in the lounge, staring at a blank television screen.   
  
Now she was sitting in an auditorium, staring at a Professor who might as well be lecturing in   
Tocharian. Her mind just wasn't on school.   
  
Adam said he'd lost track of her.   
  
She'd already yelled at him about that, he assured her that he wasn't spying on her, the matter was   
supposed to be closed.   
  
Dammit. The matter wasn't closed. She did not like the idea of Adam, or anyone else, keeping   
tabs on her every move. It was for that reason that she had come to be where she was now. Not   
the college part. The part with the ever super-paranoid mom who made her phone in every day   
and who questioned anyone who looked at either of them even a second too long. A mom who   
did not know her nineteen year old daughter was dating, and wouldn't approve of it if she did.   
  
Because once someone had tried to keep track of them, and it had nearly gotten them both killed.   
  
Adam had meant to be comforting. He wasn't. It could *never* be a comfort that someone would   
both have the ability to know her mind and would choose to use it. Lisa learned that lesson too   
well. She felt a shiver run up her spine. She pondered this for a moment, then realized with   
surprise that the shiver came not from knowing that Adam hadn't just let her walk out of his life,   
but with the knowledge that she expected nothing else from him.   
  
Lisa had long known she would grow up to be important. Really important. Her earliest   
memories were daydreams: the kind of super hero stories where the bad guy only looked   
monstrous, the challenges were right within her ability to overcome, and she always, always   
finished on top. In her dreams she was rich, powerful, and subject to no one. She lived immersed   
in the unspoken admiration of all around her.   
  
When she turned twelve, she packed those dreams away along with her Barbies, just another toy   
outgrown. Lisa Davis didn't have time for heroics anymore: she had boys, clothes, and a   
reputation to worry about. She was a teenager who had a woman to become.   
  
Then came the talent show, the one where she teleported in front of a room full of people.   
  
And it wasn't a fantasy anymore. It wasn't a daydream where she could manipulate the outcome   
until it suited her needs; where she could look at all the people who made her life difficult and   
think, "If only you knew."   
  
Now she worried about exactly that: who knew? After her mom was captured and held hostage,   
after she was subjected to that horrible *thing* that destroyed her ability to think, after her new   
found friends had nearly died trying to save them . . . After all that, she learned that wealth,   
power and freedom didn't belong to people who had something to exploit. She figured the only   
way to ever be safe again was to make sure no one knew the truth. If she didn't acknowledge her   
powers, she wouldn't use them. Then, maybe, she could forget she wasn't just like everyone else   
sitting in this classroom. Maybe, someday, everyone who knew better would also forget. And   
Lisa Davis would be once again left alone to grow into the woman she always wanted to be.   
  
Except it wasn't quite that easy, as last night so succinctly reminded her. Sometimes, she was   
learning, she had to be a person she *didn't* want to be.   
  
Like right now: She wanted to be angry. Adam had reached into her head without being invited,   
had reminded her of a part of her life she didn't look back on fondly. But she knew that even for   
all the distance she had tried to put between them, there was a connection that hadn't been   
severed -- because she could still reach back. Adam had let her walk away, but he couldn't let her   
disappear. That wasn't in her nature.   
  
The dream. That wasn't his fault. Sara had come to her, twice, and would probably keep coming   
to her until she figured out why. She sighed into her pillowed arms. Of all the problems she   
thought she'd find in college, this hadn't even made the list. But, it wasn't in her nature to turn   
down a request for help.   
  
"Miss Young," the professor said, interrupting her thoughts. "Perhaps you could tell us what   
happened in 1066?" He sounded smug, proud to be calling her on not paying attention.   
  
For just a second she panicked. That date was important. She remembered it from her attempt at   
studying the other day; it was on the list, one of those dates for which she had neglected to write   
down an explanation.   
  
"Norman conquest," she said, pulling the answer from the professor's head, too distracted to care   
about the morality or hypocrisy of it. "William the Bastard of Normandy became William the   
Conqueror when he defeated the English King Harold at the Battle of Hastings." She spoke the   
words without emotion; she had none to spare on him.   
  
"Ummm . . . thank you," she heard the professor answer. He turned back to the board and started   
to write, the chalk squealing on each down stroke. "Historical accounts tell us that King William   
spoke Norman French. When he moved to England, he brought all of his French speaking friends   
with him and, out of them, created the new nobility of England. . . ."   
  
Adam had suggested a mind-merge. He knew how she felt about her powers, and about the Ship.   
Yet of all the possible options, that was what he decided was needed. Perhaps it was. While she   
had been off trying to live her quiet life, he'd been left to lead the Tomorrow People alone. It had   
changed him, but she couldn't bring herself to believe that Adam would make any decisions   
without at least attempting to take the thoughts and feelings of the others into account. If he said   
mind-merge, it was because he believed it was the best option. The only option?   
  
As much as she hated to admit it, she didn't seem to be getting much of a choice about her   
involvement. The part of her that knew that her years of solitude were a temporary reprieve,   
knew also that the time of reprieve was at an end.   
  
Once she had promised to return to the island, to Adam. She had said the words without   
understanding what she was leaving or what she would be returning to. Still, she had meant   
them.   
  
It seemed as if someone were making sure she kept that promise, for real this time.   
  
"That was *tight*," a voice announced in her ear.   
  
Lisa started. Her pen careened across the page, leaving a black ink trail.   
  
"You put him right down. He thought he gonna make an example of you. You made *him* the   
example." Each word had the initial syllable emphasized.   
  
"Isaac," she breathed. For some reason she had been expecting Adam. "Hi. You made it to class."   
  
Isaac jumped over the row of seats and threw himself down into the seat next to Lisa. He was   
wearing a ratty gray sweatshirt, the sleeves torn off, over a forest green long-underwear shirt. It   
looked like he'd dressed in a hurry. Around his neck were a pair of headphones from which came   
the same driving beat Lisa had heard earlier.   
  
"Yeah, I made it. Last week and all. Gotta put in an appearance some time." Isaac reached down   
to the walkman hooked on his belt and shut off the music. "Let's get gone; nothing here worth   
stickin' around for."   
  
"But the class--" Lisa started to say, then stopped and looked around. The class was over. The   
blackboard was wiped clean and everyone was gone, including the Professor.   
  
"Sucked. Yeah, I know." Isaac finished for her. "What say we get outta here?" He stood up and   
held out his hand to her.   
  
Lisa closed her notebook, shoved it into her bookbag, then took the offered hand. She kept hold   
of it while they negotiated down the narrow aisle, up the stairs and out the door into a day that   
threatened at Springtime. The air was warm enough that she didn't need to zip her jackets; Isaac   
wasn't even wearing a jacket. Passing students walked with a bounce in their steps that hadn't   
been present for weeks.   
  
"So," he asked, "What's the plan? We've got a whole evening in front of us. No more classes. I   
refuse to study anymore today. Gotta have a brain break."   
  
"Actually," she answered, "We don't. I have to catch up with someone."   
  
"You have something better to do than hang out with me?" Isaac looked at her in disbelief. "I   
thought candles, hot chocolate, marshmallows, a rented movie we have no intention of watching .   
. ."   
  
"I wish I could," she responded. "It sounds so warm and cozy." She sidled a little closer to him   
and he wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "It's just that I've got other plans."   
  
"But you ain't gonna tell me what they are?" Isaac sounded offended.   
  
"There's not much to tell," she said with a shrug.   
  
Isaac removed his arm. "Why don't you tell me anyway," he suggested. "Who're you going out   
with? Where are you going? How long is it going to take? Maybe we can get together later   
tonight?"   
  
They stopped walking and Lisa turned to face him. "What's with all the questions? Don't you   
trust me?" They were standing in a small courtyard around which the main buildings of the   
campus sprawled. The grass was dead; the defrosting ground squelched under their feet. Two   
guys, both with their heads covered by red bandanas, walked by hand in hand.   
  
"The world's a big, bad place," Isaac said. "I like to know what my girl is up to. Gotta know she's   
safe."   
  
She narrowed her eyes. "You sound like my mother. Why does everyone act like I'm about to   
jump off a cliff and they have to step in and save me? I'm not a lemming. And I'm *not*   
perpetually on the verge of running off and doing something stupid."   
  
"Tell me the truth, Lisa. You seein' someone else?"   
  
"Don't be ridiculous," she snapped. "If we're going to stay together, you need to start trusting me.   
You also need to realize that I had a life before you, and I still have one that you're not always   
going to be part of." With a shake of her head she started walking away. "When you figure out   
how to deal with that, give me a call."   
  
She didn't look back to see what, if any, expression he had. 


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6  
  
The ship seemed foreboding this time, dark and silent, as if warning them  
from what they were about to undertake.  
  
A short time ago she had stated her resolve to do what it took to stop a  
return visit from Sara; now she wished she had stuck with her first  
impression. She should have stayed out. "Adam?" Lisa began, nervous.  
  
In response to her unasked question, Adam grabbed her hand and gave it a  
light squeeze. "It's okay," he said. "You're not alone."  
  
No, Lisa thought, that was the whole problem. She gripped Adam's hand  
harder. "What do I do?"  
  
He led her to one of the seats suspended like a see-saw from the central  
column. She touched it, letting her fingers drift over the cool metal, feeling  
the force that flowed within in. This chair, as did the ship and everything  
that belonged to it, pulsed. Its energy source was something more than  
electricity. It had life. Just sitting in that seat would further connect her to  
the ship than she had ever been before. Even those many years ago when  
the ship had reached into her mind and body and brought her back from  
the brink of a drowning death -- even then she hadn't had to surrender  
herself as she was about to do.  
  
She looked to Adam again, trusting him to guide her. His brown eyes held  
only understanding as he waited for her to finish her explorations, to make  
her own peace with the ship. "It's okay," he repeated.  
  
Lisa believed him, even though a part of her was busy informing her that it  
was way too late for okay. She lowered herself into the seat, on guard  
against the moment when the ship would creep into her mind and take it  
from her.  
  
"Relax." she heard Adam whisper. Then she was flying towards the  
ceiling, stomach dropping away behind her. She opened her eyes and  
looked down. Her feet were dangling in the air meters off the floor, where  
she could see footprints echoed in the sand. Adam wasn't there.  
  
She fought down a moment of panic and twisted around, scanning the  
interior of the ship. There, on the other side of the column, Adam was  
climbing into the counter-balance seat. He settled himself, his body  
looking relaxed and comfortable. Of course, Lisa realized, he'd done this  
many times before. Sharing his thoughts with the ship was something he'd  
done more freely than sharing them with his human companions.  
  
Just as suddenly as her seat had raised, it began to lower. She straightened  
herself up, conscious of the lack of seat belts or other safety restraints.  
Soon the seats settled into a gentle see-saw motion, up and down. It was  
impossible not to give herself up to the slow swinging, especially since she  
hadn't been sleeping well. She let her eyes close, felt her breathing slow.  
  
Lisa became aware of a presence in her mind which she recognized as the  
ship. All predictions to the contrary, there was nothing cold or alien about  
it. She pushed and felt it give. It understood her concerns, would stay only  
as long as she allowed it. She pushed harder, looking for the part that  
belonged to Adam.   
  
[I'm here.] She heard.  
  
[Good,] she answered sincerely, before looking around.  
  
The ship had taken the two past mind merge to another place entirely: the  
place Lisa had been in her dreams the previous nights. It was as gray and  
ill-defined as before, lacking even the door. Adam was nowhere to be  
seen, although she could still feel him in the back of her mind. Knowing  
he was there lent her confidence.  
  
The breath she meant to spend in a sigh of relief caught in her throat as  
Sara materialized inches away.   
  
"Are you going to make it stop, Lisa?" Sara asked. She stood stiffly, drawn  
in on herself.  
  
"I don't know," Lisa answered, honestly. She had no idea what they were  
here to do. If Adam knew, as she suspected he did, he wasn't telling. They  
had worked out that they needed to do a mind-trawl -- although how that  
was different from a mind merge, she also didn't know. The rest was still  
to be seen. "We're going to try."  
  
"You came back," Sara said, with a nod of finality. "You can make it  
stop."  
  
"Lisa," came Adam's voice. The girls turned as a unit towards the door. It  
was open, Adam framed in the doorway. There was a tenseness in his  
stance that Lisa could only attribute to anger, an emotion she couldn't  
recall seeing on Adam before.  
  
"What is it?" Lisa asked. She felt awareness of the ship's presence awaken  
in her mind; with it, a stronger awareness of Adam. Her judgement had  
been sound, as had his. She should have stayed out, and the ship hadn't  
wanted them to leave this alone. With its help, they would be able to safely  
cross that threshold, as Adam had just demonstrated by coming through  
the other side.  
  
"You can't," Sara whispered, crossing her arms over her chest. "That's not  
an exit." Then, true to form, she flashed out of existence.  
  
Adam didn't even blink. "I think you should see this," he said.  
  
****  
  
Grimm found his daughter staring in the full length mirror mounted inside  
his closet door. It was a relic of a time when he'd had the storybook family.  
Before his wife left for greener pastures, and his daughters went missing,  
each in their own way. There were as many memories associated with that  
piece of glass as with the wedding band he still wore, and it was one of the  
few things that still interested Sara. She returned to it time and again, with  
an uncanny stubbornness. He could usually find her eyeing her reflection  
for what he could only imagine were signs of betrayal.  
  
He set a loose pile of ungraded research papers on his bed and sat down  
next to it to wait. Although he seemed to be doing a lot of waiting  
recently, it never seemed anything other than natural. She was all he had.  
  
Sara's hands were pressed against the glass, the weight of her body  
pushing the door against the bedroom wall. He couldn't tell if she was  
looking at her reflection, the reflection of the room, or something else  
entirely.  
  
"What do you see?" he asked her. He knew that her answer, if she  
answered, wouldn't clarify anything. In his imagination, he could hear her  
aimless comment about the ocean that he'd already heard so many times.  
  
He was still watching her some while later, with the same fascination with  
which a parent watches a sleeping child, when she stiffened suddenly, her  
fingers clenching against the mirror as though seeking to claw through it.  
Rising to his feet, Grimm stepped towards her, ready to catch her and pin  
her arms if necessary to keep her from causing damage to herself.  
Although he knew she'd struggle against him, fighting him for every  
moment of contact he forced upon her, he knew there was nothing else he  
could do. There was no compromising about his child's safety, even if she  
wouldn't recognize the efforts for what they were.  
  
"You can't," he heard her say, as if she knew what he was prepared to do.  
"That's not . . . ." her voice trailed off and the last part came out  
unintelligible. Grimm's breath caught in this throat, and he found himself  
unable to move; for a few seconds, his daughter had sounded like her old  
self.  
  
It was enough for him to ask, "That's not what?" before it occurred to him  
that she'd no more answer that question than any of the hundreds of others  
he'd asked over the last few months.  
  
"Lisa? Adam?" she called into the mirror.  
  
Who? he thought, checking his knowledge of his daughters' former friends  
for anyone with either of those names. Despite their commonality, he  
could come up with no matches. The twins had always been gregarious  
children, counting friends in numbers he couldn't comprehend. But he was  
confident that he knew, or at least knew of, all the ones who were more  
than classroom acquaintances. Since Clara's disappearance, the friend's  
numbers had dwindled to nothing. He couldn't blame them. Still, it made  
him wonder all the more to who those two names she was calling  
belonged.  
  
"Lisa?" she said again, continuing to claw at the glass. Her efforts were  
having no effect except to leave finger streaks on the surface.  
Nevertheless, Grimm found himself wanting to help her tear through the  
reflection, actually believing it possible for a moment. Just when he was  
about to break his immobility to help her, she released a shuddering  
breath, sank to the floor, and curled into a tight ball.  
  
Any moment of lucidity she'd found slipped away and she started to rock.  
  
****  
  
Lisa hesitated for a moment. She had come this far already against her  
better judgment; her curiosity wouldn't allow her to turn away now. She  
stepped towards the door.  
  
Although nothing moved, while she had been standing some distance  
away, now she was crossing that threshold that had so occupied her  
thoughts for the past forty-eight hours.  
  
She wasn't even granted a chance to gain her bearings.  
  
"What would be enough?" a boy shouted. "Tell me."  
  
In front of their eyes, Lisa and Adam watched a scene unfold; the  
participants coalescing out of the gray in the same way as Sara had  
appeared and disappeared. The one shouting was the Hispanic youth  
whom Lisa had seen before. He held a glossy booklet of some sort in his  
hand, brandishing it at an unseen audience.  
  
"I get good grades. I stay out of trouble. Ay, but that's not enough for mis  
padres." He paused as though listening to a response, then shook his head  
vehemently. "Si, this es my son the doctor," he said, mocking. He spoke  
with a Mexican accent, his words seeming to be a random mix of Spanish  
and English. "This," he added, jabbing himself in the chest, "es your son  
the actor. That will have to be enough."  
  
"I dunno," another male voice said, the words overlapping but independent  
of the first speaker. "Just . . . don't feel like it." Lisa turned to see a young  
red-head leaning bonelessly against the air, as if against an invisible wall.  
He had the kind of round, open face about which one always seemed to  
assume perpetual happiness. Except he was looking at his non-present  
conversation partner through half-lidded eyes, his mouth sculpted in  
frown, his shoulders slumped, hands shoved in the pockets of his high  
school letter jacket. Stitched across the right breast was the name 'Eric'.  
  
"Yeah, I know that," the youth continued. His words sounded like a  
protest, but his tone didn't change. "Why can't you just leave me alone?"  
Despite his countenance, there was nothing happy about this youth, and  
Lisa sensed that everyone except him knew it.  
  
She turned again towards a touch on her arm, and saw Adam pointing at  
another scene, already in progress. A young girl, just entering the peak of  
her adolescence, sat on the air, in the same way as the redhead had leaned  
against an invisible wall. A black seat belt strap contrasted against the  
light blue baby-doll shirt the girl wore; the strap began in nothing and  
buckled into nothing, and was visible only where it touched her.  
  
"That looks like Sara," Lisa whispered to Adam. He put a finger to his lips  
and gestured for her to keep watching.  
  
"Dad, I'm not making it up," she protested. She twisted in her seat to look  
at someone to her left. "She just disappeared. She just broke the seal on  
her test with her pencil, which is silly if you think about it cuz what if the  
pencil breaks while you're doing that, and then you have to use your  
second pencil and that breaks right away, and then what are you supposed  
to do? So she broke the seal and opened the test booklet like we were  
instructed, then poof! All gone. The sound wasn't a poof, really, but I don't  
know how to make it. It was cool."  
  
She listened to the silence respond, then shook her head to the negative.  
"Nuh-uh. How am I supposed to know where she is?" Another pause while  
the occupant of the driver's seat spoke back. Sara started to lean back in  
the seat, then stiffened, sitting bolt upright. She turned again to the driver  
and spoke. Her voice was clear and high; her words were enunciated and  
happy. "I can hear the ocean," she said.  
  
Then she collapsed, as if gravity had just become too much of a challenge.  
The muscles in her face slackened, her eyes dulled and lost focus, her body  
seemed to shrink. She sank against the seat, propped into place by the car  
door and the seat-belt.  
  
"That was . . . interesting," Lisa said. She found herself leaning towards  
the scene, like trying to watch a show on television with bad reception.  
With conscious effort she pulled back, putting distance between herself  
and the scenario that was playing again from the beginning. "'I can hear the  
ocean'," she quoted. "I wonder what that was all about."  
  
"The ocean?" Adam repeated. "That's Sara?" He sounded as though he  
were struggling to remember something very important. "She was . . .  
there was . . . something . . . ." He shook his head.  
  
"There was what?" Lisa asked. "You knew this was big; that's why you  
made me come here. Why? What's so important about these three people?"  
  
Adam shook his head again. "I don't know. I --"  
  
"I have to leave," Adam was saying, but it was a different Adam. He  
looked several years younger, several years less mature. His hair was long,  
like it had been when Lisa first met the Australian, pulled back in a pony  
tail. "I . . ." he closed his eyes, an internal struggle visible on the lines of  
his face. "I'm sorry . . . I didn't want things to end like this."  
  
There was that interminable silence; the one of the other person or persons  
responding. The silence was almost palpable; even the other voices had  
ceased as if out of respect for this moment. The response was brief, though  
it seemed too long.  
  
The other Adam's voice dropped to a hoarse whisper, heavy with emotion.  
"I didn't want things to end."  
  
More of that silence, except it wasn't. In the background was a sound, too  
far away to hear. Lisa felt it in the very back of her head, where sounds on  
the cusp of human hearing could sometimes be sensed. The other person  
was responding. If only she could hear them.  
  
Lisa turned to look at her Adam just as the younger one started to speak. If  
she had had any doubts about the vision, they disappeared as she watched  
the elder mouthe the words along with the younger, "I didn't understand. I  
know it's too late to apologize, but I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."  
  
"So you did exist before you broke out." The words were out of Lisa's  
mouth before she could stop them. She spoke while looking back and forth  
between the two Adams, comparing them. The weight of leadership wasn't  
evident on the younger, but he wasn't without responsibility, as evidenced  
by the scene playing out.   
  
Only when the elder tore his eyes from his younger-self and looked at her  
did she realize how callous she had sounded. "Oh, I didn't mean --"  
  
"It's okay," Adam said, though he clearly wasn't okay with a piece of his  
past being laid bare. "Let's get out of here."  
  
"Who were you saying good bye to?" Lisa asked, not moving from her  
spot.  
  
Adam didn't respond, instead oddly mimicking his younger self, eyes  
closed, hands locked together. His throat worked in a swallow, then  
another, as if he were fighting back tears.  
  
"Did you love her?" she continued, taking a wild guess at the missing  
person.  
  
"It doesn't matter anymore," Adam finally said.  
  
"Adam," Lisa said, putting a hand on his shoulder, for the first time  
initiating physical contact with him. "I know it's a lot, being a Tomorrow  
Person. I do know, and I think I'm starting to understand what you mean  
about not being able to go back. But I learned something important when I  
busy ignoring you." It was her turn to find strength behind closed eyes, and  
when she met his sable gaze with her own, she couldn't help smiling as she  
gave advice to the advisor. "Sometimes, you have to be human too."  
  
"I am human."  
  
"No," she contradicted. "You're the leader of the Tomorrow People. You're  
the first of a potential next stage in human evolution. You're a shoulder to  
cry on and the person we turn to when we need help. You live in a tent on  
an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, for crying out loud.  
  
"But when was the last time you were Adam Newman? *Just* Adam  
Newman?"  
  
Adam broke their tenuous contact to look again at his younger self, still  
caught in the act of saying good bye. Like the others, the Hispanic, the red  
head, and the girl, Adam's scene was playing continuously, all of them  
overlapping one another.  
  
"That's what I thought," Lisa continued. "You expect us to trust you  
implicitly, and we do. But you don't have to be strong all the time. We  
need to be able to confide in you, but we also need you to be able to  
confide in us. We're a team."  
  
"You left the team, Lisa," Adam quietly reminded her.  
  
Lisa sighed. "That's what I thought, too." 


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7   
  
But mother . . ." a new, but known, voice whined. Lisa didn't have to face it to know what words   
were going to come next. In her mind's eye she could see the hideous pink formal dress; could   
feel her mother's hands picking at her, straightening imaginary wrinkles, removing imaginary   
dust particles.   
  
"The only actors in them are dogs," she heard herself say. That was the night of the talent show,   
the one she hadn't wanted to go to because she knew she'd be the only one there over the age of   
eight. But her mother had insisted and, as usual, got what she wanted since she had cultivated her   
selective hearing to an art form. It had been a talent show, all right, but not for the talent she had   
wanted to show. That was the night Lisa had teleported for the first time, and started the chain of   
events from which she had only thought herself freed.   
  
What had sounded like reasonable arguments at the time now sounded like the complaints of a   
spoiled child. Embarrassing complaints that she was glad no one but Adam was witness to.   
  
Unless . . .   
  
And there was Sara again. The same face, same long hair. This new sequence started off to the   
side, almost out of sight. The sense of movement got Lisa's attention first. She glanced at it,   
pulled her head back in surprise, then whispered, "Adam, look."   
  
They saw the teenager walking through endless space; there were no walls, decorations or carpet,   
so no indication of where she was or what she was doing. She stopped and looked around, as if   
planning her next move. Pulling a small vial out of her jeans, she unscrewed the top and waved it   
beneath her nose. With a satisfied nod, she leaned across something invisible and started to pour   
out the liquid, one careful drop at a time. Beneath her bracing arm, a bed became visible. With   
it, the older Asian woman who was napping on it, her mouth open. The woman wore a tailored   
black business suit minus the blazer, and was prone on top of the untucked bed sheets.   
  
The drops fell into the woman's mouth. She snorted, her face screwing up in displeasure, but   
didn't awaken. Two more drops, and she reacted again, this time in pain. She sat up suddenly,   
awake, hands clawing at her chest. Turning a panicked gaze to the girl, she mouthed something   
undiscernible. In response, the girl pocketed the now empty vial and vanished.   
  
She didn't fade out of view; she teleported, complete with the flash of light and the pop of   
imploding air.   
  
Then the whole scene erased, as if it never happened.   
  
Lisa opened her mouth to comment, and couldn't control the rush of words that followed. "That   
was Sara. Did you see it, Adam? She's one of us for sure. I know a teleport when I see one,   
though I have no idea how to explain the rest of what we saw. That was her memory. Adam, we   
know she's here. I think they're all here: Alejandro, and, what was that guys' name? Eric," she   
said, recalling the stitching on his jacket.   
  
"They are," he said, simply. "They're not supposed to be, but they are."   
  
"I saw that guy walk through the door, and now we're watching one of his memories," she   
continued, oblivious to his comment. "We came through, and--" she made a vague gesture with   
her hands that meant see for yourself', "and Sara's here, and . . . she said there had been others.   
How many others?   
  
"What kind of others?" she stopped, eyes widening as she started figuring out the answers to her   
own questions. "Oh God. She *told* me the door wasn't an exit."   
  
Before Adam could speak again, she was striding back across the threshold, back into the world   
of grey inhabited by one lonely soul.   
  
"You have to let them go," she yelled, willing the girl to hear, wherever she was. "You brought   
them here, and you're keeping them here. But they don't belong here, Sara."   
  
"No one's ever answered before, Lisa," came the timid response. "I told them not to go through. I   
told them, and they didn't answer."   
  
"That's no excuse," Lisa said. "No excuse. Can't you see that you're the one keeping them here?"   
Then, recalling another part of their first conversation, Lisa asked, "What are you waiting for?"   
  
The answer was slow in coming. At some point she became aware of Adam standing next to her,   
and then of his presence in her mind, lending strength and patience. The ship was there too, just a   
dull hum in the back of her consciousness. Then both feelings started to recede, and she could   
feel the mind merge coming to an end.   
  
[Wait,] she protested, struggling against waking up. Lisa reached to grab the teen's wrist, a   
temporary anchor she hoped until she at least got that question answered.   
  
Instead Sara froze into place, a stricken look on her face. Her skin had drained of color. "There   
will be no touching," Sara informed her in a flat, clipped voice. "Not at all."   
  
Sara struggled to release herself from Lisa's grip; Lisa held on tight. This wasn't the real world,   
and physical contact here abided by no rules except those believed by the minds of the   
participants. In that, Lisa had the advantage because her mind was set. [Sara,] she warned,   
tightening her hold.   
  
[We have to go,] Adam said, sounding distantly panicked.   
  
The girl struggled, and Lisa could feel the reality of the ship begin to dominate over the   
perception of the mind merge. At the last moment, Sara stopped fighting the contact and, with a   
baleful expression, rammed Lisa's mind with her own, hitting her with every thought at her   
disposal in one, unfocused attack.   
  
****   
  
Lisa woke up this time passing through all the stages of sleep painfully and with great reluctance.   
A headache pounded in her temples that she knew would get worse when she opened her eyes.   
She'd never had a hangover, but she was pretty sure if couldn't be anywhere near as bad as this.   
  
Lisa curled her arm around the pillow, burying her head in the security it promised . . . if she   
could return to sleep. Instinctively, she turned towards the wall, towards the darkest part of the   
room. It wasn't night time; the pink light she saw behind her eyelids gave mute evidence to the   
time of day. It hurt her head more just to think about the increased brightness if she succumbed   
and opened her eyes.   
  
But sleep would not come. It wasn't dark enough, the noises were all wrong, and now her throat   
burned with an abrupt announcement of dehydration.   
  
She gave in, turned away from the wall and let her eyes flutter open. The light wasn't quite as   
bright as she had anticipated, but it still burned. Then it began to resolve: first into colors, then   
shapes, then textures.   
  
The color and shapes and textures became Adam. He was leaning over her, concern marring his   
gentle face. Out of nowhere a hand pressed against her forehead. It felt cool and dry, and then her   
head didn't hurt quite so much.   
  
"How do you feel?" he asked.   
  
The response stuck in her throat. She tried to muster enough saliva to swallow, relieve the   
soreness long enough to answer, but to no avail. With a shake of her head, she collapsed back   
against the pillow.   
  
Somehow Adam seemed to understand anyway. He disappeared from her view, then returned a   
minute later with a coffee mug. Together they got her sitting up enough to drink the cold water,   
which almost hurt her throat more than the light had hurt her eyes. This pain was welcomed,   
though, it was temporary in itself and it banished another. She accepted the mug from Adam and   
pressed this new coolness to her forehead.   
  
"I know I'm going to regret this," Lisa said, "but . . . what happened back there?" She was able to   
sit up now as straight as the limited space under the bunk bed allowed, and she was hot. Too hot.   
She pushed the blankets down the end of the bed; blankets, she saw, which had been pulled up   
around her as if she had been tucked in.   
  
"You passed out. I couldn't wake you," he answered simply.   
  
That explained the tucking in. "So you brought me here," she said. To her dorm room. Thank   
goodness Tanya hadn't been there.   
  
"Yes. The Ship thought you'd be safer there." He took a seat on the floor, crossed his legs, then   
leaned forward with his elbows planted on his knees. "I thought you wouldn't want to hang   
around there if you didn't have to."   
  
"Thank you," she said.   
  
He hesitated, then continued, "Megabyte and Jade were on their way to the ship."   
  
"I--"   
  
"I brought you here before they arrived."   
  
She blinked, considering what he just told her. He did understand. Without being told, without   
the topic even coming up, Adam understood that she wasn't ready yet to deal with the other   
Tomorrow People. He was going to let her readjust on her own terms. Or, at least, the terms Sara   
allowed them. "Thank you," she said again. "I mean it."   
  
"You're welcome."   
  
She took a long sip of the water, then turned so she was sitting on the side of the bed instead of   
laying in it. "So, did we learn anything? Was it worth it?"   
  
"I think the Ship was trying to give us some answers," Adam replied.   
  
"Answers? It didn't show us anything that made any sense." Lisa said, her memories of the   
mind-merge beginning to surface. "Wasn't this supposed to tell us what to do next?"   
  
"It doesn't work like that," Adam said. "The Ship allows us to re-access information we all ready   
have. It'll show us what we need to know, but only if we already know it." He stood up and   
started to pace, the nervous energy that had long been his hallmark needing outlet. "This time it   
connected us with Sara, so her thoughts were in the mix too. It must have had a reason for   
showing us the things it did."   
  
"It wanted to confuse us?" Lisa asked, with mock hopefulness.   
  
"The Ship isn't malicious, Lisa. It's on our side; it wants to help us as much as it can."   
  
"I mean, what did we learn?" she continued as if Adam hadn't spoken, "Sara's doing something to   
some people for some reason that's causing big problems." She scowled. "That was so vague it   
was barely a sentence. Why didn't the Ship just tell us what to do? There was a lot of stuff   
happening in my head, but it didn't show us the one thing we went there to find out: how to find   
her."   
  
"Maybe it did," Adam said, growing thoughtful.   
  
"What?" Lisa demanded. "What did you see?"   
  
"I think we should look in the obituaries." He started pacing again.   
  
"You think she's dead! Then how did the Ship connect us with her? Don't tell me that ghosts can   
mind merge."   
  
"No."   
  
Lisa sighed "Good. That was just too creepy. I don't even want to think about ghosts."   
  
"I think she killed someone."   
  
"That's not any better! Where'd you get that from?" Lisa stood up, almost hitting her head on the   
top bunk in the process. "Please stop pacing; you're making me nervous. We can't kill, Adam.   
Remember? Or did something change while I was out of the loop?"   
  
Adam shook his head. "No, and yes."   
  
"Oh, that clears things right up."   
  
He sat on the edge of Tanya's desk. "Did you hear what happened over the summer?"   
  
"Uh-uh. But I'll take a guess and say it wasn't any fun."   
  
The corner of Adam's mouth quirked up in an involuntary smile. "No, it wasn't any fun," he said.   
He pushed a stack of books out of the way, got more comfortable on the desk, and told her the   
whole story. There had been yet another in a seemingly endless line of secret government   
projects intended to use telepaths and teleporters as spies and assassins. In the end, they had   
caught the people responsible, and learned of at least a dozen teenagers who should have become   
Tomorrow People. Their destiny had been stolen when they'd been forced to commit the one   
crime of which Tomorrow People can't even conceive.   
  
"That's awful!" Lisa responded, fighting off a wave of revulsion. "You think she was part of   
that?"   
  
"I think it's a place to start. Where's the library?" Adam held up his hands, palms facing her.   
  
He wants to teleport there? Oh, won't that be a riot . . . in more ways than one. "About two blocks   
from here," she answered, deliberately not matching his gesture. "but," she looked at his feet on   
which he had slipped a pair of laceless shoes appropriate for the beach and little else, "You're   
going to need socks."   
  
"Socks?"   
  
"And a jacket. Remember, December in this part of the world means winter. It's cold outside.   
And we can't just teleport in." Off his confused look, she explained, "Finals are next week; the   
place is going to be packed."   
  
The sentence still hung in the air when the door to the room crashed open.   
  
"This is so unfair!" Tanya burst into the room, a crumpled sheaf of papers clutched in her right   
hand. "Can you believe how unfair this is? I worked on this forever, and that dumb professor   
practically flunked me. I can't believe he *did* this to me?" She held aloft the sheaf, revealing it   
to be a research paper. Lines of tight, red writing marred the lower half of the cover page.   
  
Lisa blinked once, trying to adjust to the shift in conversation. "What did who do to you?" she   
asked, before it occurred to her that it might have been better to keep her mouth shut. She   
grimaced as that thought caught up with her, then held her breath while she awaited the   
forthcoming barrage of words.   
  
Beside her, Adam seemed calm, almost expectant of the interruption. But, the flicker of panic   
Lisa felt in her mind gave him away.   
  
"That dumb professor. You know. I worked on this paper for, like, a whole day and he had to go   
and give me a B+. Can you believe it? He said it's too long, and," she squinted at the writing,   
"'the argument isn't carefully defended'. Yeah, whatever that means. Like you can deal with that   
topic in ten pages and even begin to stay what needs to be said. If he knew his material better,   
he'd know that this is an A paper."   
  
"I know I'm going to regret this," Lisa said, "but which 'dumb professor'?"   
  
"You know, Prof. G." Tanya stormed over to her desk, threw the paper on it, then picked it back   
up and tucked it into the lower drawer. "He's going to ruin my whole grade point average. And   
I'm never going to forgive you, either," she said, rounding on Adam.   
  
He opened his mouth to respond, but she didn't give him the chance.   
  
"We were supposed to have a coffee date? Or has Lisa been saying bad things about me again? Is   
that why you didn't show up? You told me you loved coffee, and I love coffee, so it just shows   
that we're destined for each other. We both love French Silk Mochas. How much more perfect is   
that? I waited for you for, like, hours at that coffee shop and you didn't even have the decency to   
show up. I have never been stood up before, and I'm not going to start tolerating it now." She   
glared at him. "Well, aren't you going to apologize?"   
  
"Pardon?" Adam said, sounding more like he wanted to be anywhere else really fast.   
  
"And you," Tanya continued, aiming her glare at Lisa, "How could you not tell me that the shop   
was closed? The sign on the window says that Health Officials closed it last semester. You know,   
you could have saved me tons of embarrassment if you'd mentioned *something*. I would have   
told you. But, no, you let me stand outside that shop, making a complete fool of myself. I hope   
no one saw me."   
  
She stormed back across the room to her closet, where she began rooting through the clothes that   
threatened to burst out of it. "Now I'm going to have to change so no one recognizes me. Thanks   
a lot. I was hoping not to have to do laundry this weekend." She yanked something out of the   
closet that looked like a large, red t-shirt. Turning around, she held the hanger up under her chin,   
revealing the article to be a short sleeved dress that barely reached mid-thigh. "What do you   
think?"   
  
"Umm, it's December," Lisa said, feeling oddly repetitive. "It's cold out. You're going to freeze if   
you wear that."   
  
"Who's Professor G?" Adam asked.   
  
"Greenberg," Lisa replied. "We have an English class with him. Why?"   
  
"I don't know. It just feels important. I feel like there's something--"   
  
"Greenberg? I don't think so," Tanya interrupted. "Greenberg is such a loser. I dropped his class   
like on the second day. I'm taking it with that other guy now. You know, the one with the beard."   
  
"Beard?"   
  
"I think he has a beard. Do you remember if he had a beard? No, you wouldn't, cuz you can't   
seem to remember *anything*. You need to pay attention better." She let the dress drop to the   
floor, turned around and began rooting through the closet again. Seconds later, she emerged with   
a black pantsuit. "He's the one with the kid. The papers went on and on about it over the summer.   
Like no one else ever had a kid run away before. Please. He's so mean he's probably got her   
locked in the attic."   
  
Adam had a strange, thoughtful look on his face. "Is his name Grimm?" he asked while Tanya   
took a breath.   
  
[What are you doing?] Lisa asked, his question catching her off guard.   
  
[Playing a hunch,] Adam responded, then: [Welcome back.]   
  
Tanya rolled her eyes. "Duh. I told you that. God." Without a comment, she added the pantsuit to   
the growing pile on the floor and returned to her closet.   
  
Lisa turned to Adam slowly. "She is at this school. She's just not a student here. Come on." She   
pulled him into the hallway, making sure the door shut behind them. "Look, go home, get some   
socks on," she whispered, knowing that Tanya could listen through the door. "A jacket, too, if   
you have one. Then meet me . . ." She threw her hands up. "I don't know. Meet me at the English   
building."   
  
"You know where this Professor is?"   
  
"No. But if he teaches here, he's got to have an office. We find the office, we find him. The   
problem is catching him during office hours. Professors are notorious for scheduling their office   
hours on something other than Earth time."   
  
Adam nodded, and looked up and down the hallway. The mural was finished, and for once since   
its inception, the hallway was empty. "The English building," he said.   
  
"Yes. Find me."   
  
He nodded again, then vanished. 


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8   
  
The tentative knock at his office door pulled Grimm from the nearly hypnotic task of grading   
homework assignments. He looked up at the two people who stood in the doorway, both of   
whom were the right age to be his students but neither were faces he'd seen staring at him in a   
lecture hall. The younger, a black teenager with a full face and intelligent eyes, looked far more   
nervous than a visit to a professor should warrant, unless she was one of those students who only   
showed up to the first and last day of class. Behind her stood a white man, taller than the woman   
by a few inches, older by a few years and obviously the moral support of the pair.   
  
"Can I help you?" he asked, directing the question at the woman. He pasted an expression of   
polite interest on his face in case he was supposed to know her. There were so many faces and   
though he tried, he never could learn them all.   
  
"Maybe," she replied, glancing down at her sneakers and then back up to him. "We wanted to   
talk you about Sara." The name came out as a question. She licked her lips and opened her mouth   
as if to say something more, then closed it.   
  
"You are friends?" His eyebrows drew together as he tried to match their faces with any he might   
have known. The woman did look familiar, but he couldn't figure out why. The more he looked   
at her, the more he was certain she wasn't one of his students but that he did know her from   
somewhere.   
  
"We've met," she said.   
  
"I'm Adam," the young man introduced. "And this is Lisa."   
  
Grimm was just rising out of his chair when the young man spoke up; he sat down quickly and   
appraised the two again. "Oh! . . . I -- she's mentioned you," he stammered after a second.   
"Please, come in." He indicated the folding chair in front of his desk, eyes darting around the   
small office as he looked for another available seat. There was none. He gave a shrug, raising his   
hands in apology, and rose to his feet, successfully this time. If they were going to stand, then so   
was he.   
  
"She's mentioned us?" Lisa repeated, perplexed.   
  
"Yesterday, in fact. She seemed worried about you. Are you okay? Of course you're okay. You're   
here--" He realized he was babbling even as the words spilled from his lips. In one of her stranger   
moments, Sara had called out two names. The fact that people bearing those names showed up at   
his door a day later shouldn't mean anything. It was a coincidence, nothing more. But even as he   
had the thought, he dismissed it as another rationalization that wasn't going to work. He knew his   
daughter had been calling for the people who stood before him now. He also knew that if he   
didn't rein in his tongue, they'd leave before he found out why they were here.   
  
"Professor," Adam interrupted. "Sara's alive?"   
  
"Of course she's alive," he answered.   
  
The looks Lisa and Adam traded made it clear that they'd expected a different answer. "But . . we   
thought . . . I mean . . . ." Lisa threw her hands up. "I give up," she said. "This doesn't make any   
sense."   
  
"Why would you think she's not alive?" he pressed. Even asking the question, he couldn't bring   
himself to say 'dead'. Dead was too final; saying it might jinx it into happening. Sara wasn't dead   
because he couldn't handle it if she left too.   
  
They didn't have an answer. He could see it in their furrowed brows and down turned lips; in the   
way the woman looked like she wanted to walk right out the door and never return, in the way   
the man shoved his hands in his jean pockets because he'd become conscious of them hanging   
helpless at his sides.   
  
Then it occurred to him who they were talking about. Not Sara after all. But they wouldn't have   
any reason to know that.   
  
"Clara," he whispered. They had known something he didn't, and now he was sorry he'd wanted   
to find out.   
  
"What?"   
  
"Sara . . . and Clara. They're twins."   
  
"You gave them rhyming names?" Lisa asked in disbelief. "Isn't that a little . . . cliche?"   
  
"Their names came from something I was studying for my dissertation," he answered without   
apology. Centum/Satem. The name for a major division in the world's languages. Sharing those   
names with his newborn daughters seemed like a way to intertwine his work and home lives a   
little more; a professional in-joke as it were; and a kind of honorarium.   
  
"That explains it," Adam interrupted, freeing a hand from his pocket to run it through his hair.   
  
"It does?" Lisa asked at the same time as Grimm said, "Explains what?" They weren't talking   
about the names.   
  
"You were right," Adam told Lisa. "She couldn't have done it. And *she* didn't."   
  
He saw Lisa's eyebrow quirk up and some of the confusion disappear from her eyes. Adam's   
words either made sense to her or she was listening to an entirely different conversation. Possibly   
both. Grimm rubbed a knuckle against the bridge of his nose. "Now could you please explain   
your explanation?"   
  
"It's kinda complicated," Lisa said.   
  
"That much is obvious. Why don't we start with the reason you're here? You said --" And for the   
second time since their arrival, his mind blanked and his words cut off as his eyes came to rest on   
the manila folder that peeked at him from beneath a stack of research papers. With one hand, he   
slid the folder from beneath the stack and opened its worn cover. At the top sat a photo copy   
from the front page of the Virginia Post. Lisa's face stared out at him from a nest of slightly   
smeared copy.   
  
He silently handed the page to her.   
  
She accepted it; her mouth forming an "oh" as she registered what she held. Her teleporting act   
hadn't gone unnoticed, had in fact been caught on video by some proud father with a child in the   
talent show and a camcorder. That tape had earned Lisa coverage on the local news, and then an   
above-the-fold article in the local paper.   
  
"Clara disappeared into thin air too," he informed them, all the hurt and worry he'd felt over the   
past few months welling to the surface. "I didn't see it, but Sara did. She told me about it. I . . .   
didn't believe her then. Do you know where she is?"   
  
Adam seemed to be studying the books lining the wall nearest him as he answered, "We do."   
  
"We do?" Lisa echoed.   
  
"At least," the young man clarified, "we know what happened to her?"   
  
"We do?" Lisa repeated. She looked hard at Adam, her gaze unwavering as she directed her next   
words back to Grimm. "He might. In fact, he probably does. But I have no idea what he's talking   
about, just for the record."   
  
He was about to respond, although he wasn't sure what would come out of his mouth, when a   
movement in the hallway caught his attention. Holding up his hand in a "wait a minute" gesture,   
he stepped around his desk and across the office that really wasn't big enough for all the people   
now in it.   
  
Sure enough, hovering in the doorway across the hall and a few feet down was their topic of   
conversation. In silence the two youths joined him and watched as Sara took tentative steps   
forward and back, as if being compelled to the office but drawn away, like an iron filing between   
two magnets.   
  
"Is that her?" Lisa whispered near his ear.   
  
He nodded sadly, trying not to see his daughter as Lisa and Adam must be seeing her. It was   
strange, but it made sense too, that in the months of his studies, of the apologies, he'd grown used   
to the silent teenager who would dance her way in and out of his thoughts. He could talk to her,   
and even though he wanted nothing more than to hear a real answer, there was an incredible   
freedom in knowing he didn't have to be on guard against injuring feelings or revealing more of   
the self than polite.   
  
Grimm wondered at what point he'd become . . . comfortable with how things now stood even as   
he railed against them with his every action.   
  
"I don't know how she does that," Grimm said, speaking more to himself than to Lisa and Adam.   
"She's barely capable of functioning on a day to day basis. Yet, somehow, she manages to get out   
of the house, without the housekeeper noticing, walk all the way across campus, and then up five   
flights of stairs to find me."   
  
"This happens a lot?" Adam asked. There was something odd in his voice that Grimm didn't   
know how to place.   
  
"Fourth time. No one ever sees her either. I have to wonder that she doesn't freeze to death."   
  
Sara didn't look cold; she didn't look like someone who'd walked half a mile in the winter   
without benefit of jacket, gloves or hat. All she was wearing was her usual sweatsuit, this one a   
faded yellow with the school's name appliqued down the right leg in green. On her feet was a pair   
of socks so worn that her big toes poked out.   
  
She minced closer to the crowd in the doorway, her gaze not seeming to register them. She   
stopped in front of her father, politely waiting for him to clear the doorway so she could enter the   
office. Or, so it would appear to anyone not aware of her current state.   
  
"Hi, Sara," Adam said. The gentleness in his tone belied the tension in the room.   
  
Not surprisingly, she didn't answer. She did turn towards her father as if waiting for him to   
explain.   
  
"So there's two of them?" Lisa asked. "I just want to get this straight."   
  
"There's two of them," Adam confirmed. "Sara is right here. Clara, your sister," he said, his voice   
low, directed at the silent twin. "Teleported. She is -- or was -- like Lisa and I: a Tomorrow   
Person."   
  
Grimm released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding; haven't been holding. A   
metaphorical breath released as the question 'why' finally got an answer. Two words. Two   
simple, common words that together meant so much more than a sum of their parts. They were   
Tomorrow People. And for all the information those two words didn't convey, they made perfect   
sense.   
  
It didn't matter that Grimm wasn't supposed to believe in teleporting, hadn't believed in it up until   
that very second. The proof had been provided months before with Clara's disappearance. Seeing   
the face from the newspaper article on a real person who stood right next to him, hearing the   
young man's somber words, unseeing and careless of anyone's acceptance -- those were all he   
needed to get beyond his intrinsic disbelief, to accept the proof for what it was. Questions   
pounded his brain, but they were questions to seek more information, not to pass judgement.   
  
"Like you," Adam finished.   
  
Sara pivoted, now facing Lisa. The vacant eyes stared at the elder girl, her face expressionless.   
Was she the one seeking proof?   
  
Grimm cleared his throat. "So, where is Clara now? Shouldn't she have come back? Or is she not   
allowed . . . to come back?" He tried to swallow back the rising bile. After all those months of   
wondering and blaming, he finally got an answer. Its messengers seemed like friendly, mature   
young adults. What weren't they telling him?   
  
"That's a long story," Adam said. "I'm afraid the ending isn't a happy one."   
  
Grimm suspected he already knew how this story ended, but he had to ask anyway. "Will you tell   
me . . . ?" He had to ask, but he still couldn't say it.   
  
Lisa pursed her lips. "But, it's not over. Right, Adam? Isn't there still something . . . ?" She   
paused, leaned out into the hallway and looked both directions. Grimm knew what she was   
seeing: the rows of closed doors and dark rooms. The only sounds he'd heard in the building for   
hours were Lisa and Adam's arrival, then Sara's arrival. Seemingly satisfied, she continued, "The   
Ship isn't done yet."   
  
"The ship?" Grimm asked. "What ship?"   
  
"You'll see," Adam responded. He sounded proud, like it was something he'd built himself. "It's   
where we're going now. Sara," he said, looking at her again. "Are you ready?"   
  
Sara minced back and forth a few steps, her gaze not leaving Lisa.   
  
"I know," Lisa responded at length, "There won't be any touching." She extended one of her own   
hands out towards the teen, palm out. "You don't have to touch, just do what I'm doing."   
  
"It's okay," Adam added in reassurance, extending his own palm in Sara's direction.   
  
Behind him, Grimm could feel the movement as Lisa and Adam shifted in their stances. A glance   
over his shoulder confirmed that the two had copied their strange action with their other hands,   
palms almost touching. He looked back to see Sara's stiffened arms raising, for all the world like   
a puppet on strings, until they matched the gestures.   
  
"Put your hand on my shoulder, Professor," Adam said, without turning his attention from Sara.   
"And shut your eyes."   
  
Grimm complied, sensing that now wasn't the time to have his curiosity satisfied. Sensing further   
that it was about to be satisfied beyond his wildest dreams.   
  
Nothing happened for long seconds except the buildup of some kind of charge in the air; a charge   
that raised all the hairs on his arms and made the back of his neck tingle. He fought the urge to   
open his eyes; the direction wouldn't have been given if it weren't important.   
  
He barely heard Sara whisper, "I can hear the ocean," then the back of his eyelids turned pink, the   
hairs on his arms and head took a sudden jump, and he felt the charge rip through his body, from   
the inside out. 


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9   
  
Here it is," someone said.   
  
And this is it, Lisa thought as the four materialized into the center room of the ship. Unlike her   
other two appearances at the ship in recent days, Lisa already knew that this one wasn't just a   
visit.   
  
Oh, she'd be leaving of course. Only Adam could be happy living on the island, and she still had   
college and her mother to worry about. But she had been called on to keep her promise. When   
she returned to the ship, and she would return, it would be without the fear that had marred her   
previous visits. It wouldn't matter how long she'd been away or what had happened in the   
interim; the ship would welcome her. When she returned, she'd be returning home.   
  
She didn't see herself ever re-joining the ranks full time, but the Tomorrow People could call on   
her if they needed her.   
  
No sooner had the flash of light faded, than she and Adam moved towards the column, taking up   
positions next to it like guards.   
  
"That was . . . interesting." Grimm cleared his throat and looked around. Lisa could see him   
taking in details of the ship that individually didn't seem unusual, but together added up to an   
obviously alien design. "Here is the ship. Do I want to know where 'here' is?" he asked, sounding   
calm, but only by a sheer effort of will.   
  
"Don't worry," Adam reassured. "We're still on Earth, and we're not any more aliens than you   
are." The last was a preemptive answer of the question that usually came after "where are we".   
  
Grimm drew a deep breath. Rubbing his hands against his black slacks, he asked, "Does that   
mean that I'm an alien?"   
  
"I hope not," Lisa interjected with a laugh. She had wondered when someone would jump to the   
obvious wrong conclusion to Adam's line. "My mom had enough trouble dealing with the whole   
teleporting thing. There had better not be any other secrets I have to break to her."   
  
That earned her a nervous smile, but the tension in the small room dissipated.   
  
Once Professor Grimm's worries were put to rest, he found a new focus for his energies: on the   
writing that covered the walls of the ship. The alien symbols. The linguist in him surfaced. Lisa   
could see the questions forming, the curiosity at play as he wandered over to one of the walls and   
lovingly traced the symbols etched there. She suspected he'd probably be spending a lot of time at   
the ship until he solved the mystery of the words written there. Even the Tomorrow People didn't   
know their meaning.   
  
Adam grabbed Lisa's arm and pulled her into one of the side passages. The air was heavier here   
and smelled of dead fish. Lisa crinkled her nose against it.   
  
"Yeah?" she asked, not knowing what to expect.   
  
"Did you get a good look at Sara?" He glanced out into the main room. He didn't comment on   
what, if anything, he saw going on in there.   
  
Lisa hesitated, trying to find the right words. "She's not normal, right? There's something wrong   
with her." She frowned; those were not the right words. She sounded like she was commenting   
on a problem that one could look up in the Merck Manual.   
  
"She's a Tomorrow Person," he stated.   
  
"I figured out that much. She was able to teleport here, which she wouldn't have been able to do   
otherwise. Unless that's changed? No? Then, of course she's a Tomorrow Person. But there's   
something else. There's something wrong with her eyes, like she's seeing but not seeing. And   
there's that whole 'no touching' thing. If I didn't know better, I'd say she was Autistic."   
  
Adam led her a little deeper into the passage, then lowered his voice, "What makes you think   
she's not?"   
  
"Because she's a Tomorrow Person," Lisa said, as if the answer were obvious. "Plus, I get the   
feeling that whatever is wrong happened recently. Teenagers don't just boom, wake up one day   
and find out they're autistic."   
  
"Do you get the sense that she's not really here?"   
  
"Yeah," she said. "That's it exactly. She's here, but not here. You know what's going on, don't   
you? Again?" Because, why wouldn't he? And why wouldn't Adam or the Ship make up its mind   
if it wanted her to be involved in things or not? When this was over, she was going to have to   
have words with both of them about dragging her into adventures and then deliberately   
withholding all the vital information.   
  
Adam nodded. "I reckon that when her sister died, it was really sudden. They were both   
telepathic, and Sara got the backlash from it. She turned her powers inward."   
  
Lisa started. "On purpose?"   
  
"No. Probably a defensive mechanism. Right now she's trapped in her own head. We had to bring   
her here so the ship could help her turn them back the right way."   
  
He said that like he was stating the obvious. In a way, she figured, he was. But, she was going to   
have to go home and spend a few hours thinking about everything before she figured out how any   
of this was obvious. Until then, she found herself saying, "Which you knew. And I guess I knew   
that too, because I knew we had to come here. That makes sense. I guess. So there's a new   
Tomorrow Person, now."   
  
Adam didn't say anything right away. She gave him a few seconds, then began to walk past him   
back to the main room. "That's cool," she said, because it seemed like she needed to say   
something else. "The world needs more."   
  
They hadn't gone very far into the tunnels, just far enough that they couldn't be easily overheard.   
With a few steps she was almost back in the main room. The air became less oppressive as she   
walked, the humidity level lessening. The dead fish smell also eased. Lisa drew a deep breath of   
the fresher air and paused for a moment to enjoy the warmth. This was turning out to be a pretty   
good day, after all.   
  
From behind her, she heard Adam respond, "Yes, it does." He didn't sound happy.   
  
"What?" she asked, turning around to look at him. "What do you mean?"   
  
He just shook his head. "It wasn't supposed to end this way."   
  
Huh? That sounded familiar, but what did he mean by it? She glanced at him again, about to ask,   
but he just kept walking, right on past her. His face was set in an expression she knew well. If he   
had anything else to say, she was going to have to wait to hear it.   
  
No sooner had she stepped back into the main chamber when a small sound directed her attention   
to Sara, who stood next to the wall that kissed the sea. Sara stepped close to the panel, as if   
intending to walk through it, then stopped short. "The ocean," she murmured. She too sounded   
happy, as if finding something she'd been searching for her entire life. And perhaps, Lisa   
speculated, she had.   
  
Sara's remark preceding the teleport hadn't gone unnoticed, even if there hadn't been time to   
comment on it. It had sounded almost rehearsed, something said so many times that its meaning   
had been sapped away. But it was becoming apparent that the Sara that had Lisa had met in her   
dreams wasn't the Sara that Lisa and Adam had met. Maybe once the two had been the same, but   
Clara's teleport had done more than tear apart a set of twins.   
  
Lisa nodded to herself, a small glimmer of understanding taking root.   
  
"Is that what she's been talking about?" her father asked, a different kind of clarity stealing over   
his features. Then almost too low to hear, "All this time."   
  
The two Tomorrow People stood together, flanking the central column, while Professor Grimm   
hovered somewhere behind his daughter, close enough to assert his protectiveness and far enough   
not to frighten her.   
  
Sara regarded her reflection in the transparent panel. It was faint, being not in a mirror but on a   
glass panel backed only by deep blue sea water. It wavered with the small movements of the sea   
pushing against the island, and the remnants of the waves breaking against the shore. Looking   
closely, Lisa could make out the barely visible image. Sara regarded her reflection, but didn't   
make any other movement.   
  
The three watched her, watching herself, waiting for her to complete whatever ritual needed   
completing before they could take her home.   
  
Nothing happened for long enough that Lisa's mind started to wander. She almost didn't notice   
when the reflection brought both its hands up and pressed them against the glass. She heard a   
sharp intake of breath from someone, then realized that Sara still hadn't moved.   
  
Slowly Sara brought her own hands up and mirrored Clara's gesture.   
  
In the glass, Lisa could see a small smile start on the girl's lips. The smile seemed hesitant at first,   
then grew, brightening her face; creating an illusion of health and happiness on the wane   
countenance. The pose was held. A sense of anticipation settled about the ship; Lisa took several   
deep breaths, quietly forcing the air in and out of her lungs so as not to disturb anything. She   
could hear Adam next to her doing the same thing.   
  
Sara was here to get her powers turned around, to correct the backlash that started when her twin   
sister killed. Lisa knew that because Adam had told her. How Adam knew it, she still couldn't   
figure out. That was fine, however, because she was coming to accept that Adam knew a lot of   
things that he wasn't letting on.   
  
She also didn't know what it would mean for Sara's powers to be fixed. The concept was easy   
enough; the actuality was outside her imagination.   
  
Despite the knowledge that something major was going to happen, Lisa wasn't prepared when   
Sara turned away from the reflection, the smile still on her face, and with a tilt to her head said,   
"Daddy?" 


	10. Epilogue

Epilogue   
  
Light shone through the window, not but not sunlight. The memory of sunlight only. No dust   
particles were visible, no warmth detectable. Simply light that luminated what needed to be seen   
and left the rest untouched.   
  
Sara leaned back against the window sill, feeling the press of wood in the small of her back. It   
was the first thing she'd felt without pain in a very long time.   
  
"This is right," she said, taking in the room. It had changed a lot since she'd last seen it, except   
that it didn't look any different. The walls were painted a soft yellow, with a bright floral runner   
framing the ceiling. It was her bedroom, but not really. She was back in the dream room her mind   
had created that had been as much her jail as her haven. Now it was just a haven, and she'd never   
again have to be alone.   
  
The teen sitting on the nearest bed in a nest of pillows and blankets nodded back. Their faces had   
once been as identical as two humans' could be. Today enough differences showed that strangers   
might recognize the two girls as mere sisters, no more. Clara looked wane, heavy circles beneath   
her eyes marking how much recovery she still needed. Her hair hung long and tangled, held back   
from her face with metal barrettes placed high on her head.   
  
"What do we say?" Clara asked. "How do we explain what happened?"   
  
Sara's brow furrowed, not in thought but as though she were listening to something faint and far   
away. "I don't think we have to explain. I mean, how could we?"   
  
"We were as much victims as them," Clara agreed.   
  
"No. I mean, you were. You were a victim. But I made choices. Maybe I didn't understand what I   
was doing, but I knew I was doing it."   
  
"So you were a victim."   
  
"No." Sara shook her head, her hands clutching behind her at the window sill for support. "That's   
not the right way to think. I'm okay with knowing I screwed up. I'm a teenager. That's kinda what   
I'm supposed to do. But not . . . I don't wanna be a victim." Could she be, she wondered? Was it   
possible to be a victim of your own actions? She gnawed on her lip and tried to wrap her mind   
around the question.   
  
Clara interrupted her thoughts with her own question. "Do you remember when we were little,"   
she asked, "and mom would dress us in identical outfits and send us off to kindergarten. The   
teacher put a yellow ribbon in your hair so she could tell us apart? And she asked Mom all the   
time not to dress us alike, but Mom always said it was a waste of identical twins if you couldn't   
dress them the same?"   
  
Sara nodded. "I hated that ribbon. I think I still hate the color yellow. Total trauma."   
  
"I always wondered if she dressed us the same so she wouldn't have to worry about who was   
who. She never called us by our real names anyway." Clara looked up at the ceiling, silently   
composing thoughts that had only the slightest reflection on her face. "But, you do remember the   
ribbon, right? You remember kindergarten and Mrs . . . Miss . . . oh, what was her name?"   
  
"Howes? House?" Sara guessed. "Houston," both the girls said at the same time, then burst into   
giggles.   
  
"I don't know how I could forget her name," Sara said, smiling at the nostalgia. The smile faded   
as she recalled why that name was so meaningful. "She was our teacher the year Challenger blew   
up. Remember the jokes?" She hesitated, then said, "I suppose they weren't very funny. We were   
just too young to understand."   
  
Growing serious, Clara said, "At least you remember the same stuff I do. I wasn't sure you   
would."   
  
"Why not?   
  
"When I was unconscious . . . I think his name was Casey . . . after he made me, you know, after   
he got inside my head and the nightmare . . . ." Her voice dropped to a whisper; her gaze didn't   
leave the ceiling. "I dreamed I was killing someone. Only, it wasn't me. I was doing it, but I was   
also watching it be done." She started to shake.   
  
"That's awful," Sara responded, not even trying to keep the shock out of her voice. "Did you do   
it? Did it really happen?"   
  
"It happened." Clara's words dropped like boulders in a pond. "Afterwards, there was so much   
going on, all at once. I dreamed so many dreams. One was about being born and growing up. It   
was a whole different life, though. The ribbon was purple. There were other dreams. I'm not even   
sure which ones were mine and which ones weren't. Then I started to wake up, and now I'm not   
sure which life is which. I remember parts of them both, as if they both happened to me at the   
same time." She tore her gaze away from the ceiling and looked at her sister with obvious effort.   
"I think I royally screwed up. I'm just not sure what I coulda done about it." Clara pulled the quilt   
tighter around her frail body. "What about them?" she asked, nodding towards the doorway, "Do   
you think maybe they screwed up?"   
  
"I don't think . . . ." Sara paused again, the listening expression returning. "I don't think that's for   
me to say," she concluded.   
  
"I hear it too."   
  
"The ship?"   
  
"The ship. It's so deep in my head that I didn't know it wasn't me at first."   
  
"It is you," Sara reminded her. "Don't ever forget that. It's you and it's me. Without it there   
wouldn't be a you-and-me. We made that choice too."   
  
Clara pondered this. "You think it was the right one?"   
  
The light in the room grew brighter, the warmth deeper, surrounding the two girls. Both flinched   
reflexively before their minds recognized that there was no danger; the ship merely had its own   
opinion to express.   
  
"Almost," Sara responded. "There's still something I need to do."   
  
"I know."   
  
Sara's eyebrows went up in surprise. "How? You were unconscious."   
  
"I've known since the beginning. I know I was out for a long time to you, but to me it wasn't very   
long at all. The dreams. I remember everything that happened to you, and everything that   
happened to me, and a few things that happened to other people, and all those years took only a   
few seconds." She smiled ruefully, one finger tracing the bruising under her right eye. "I hope the   
Ship will still let me come visit. There are some people I'd like to talk to."   
  
"Even though . . .?" Even though you're not a Tomorrow Person anymore, Sara thought, but   
couldn't say.   
  
Clara nodded once, understanding. "Especially because."   
  
"Do you think things will be different?"   
  
"Of course. The whole time I was gone, all Dad could think about was having us both healthy   
and home with him. He was willing to do anything for you."   
  
"What about you?" Sara asked. She pushed herself away from the window sill and tried to find   
something to do. There wasn't much. This room was bare of the usual diversions; what existed,   
existed because it was important to her or served an immediate function: the beds, the quilt still   
clutched in her sister's hands. On top of the dresser, a tall wooden chest on which the girls had   
once spent a glorious afternoon slopping a bucket of paint, sat a single framed picture. She didn't   
even know who was in it, her or her sister.   
  
"Mostly he'd given up on me," Clara answered. "He didn't want to admit it, but he knew I   
wouldn't be coming back. He figured I was dead."   
  
Sara picked up the frame. It was heavy in her hands. Light from somewhere glared off the glass,   
hiding the picture inside. "He was wrong," Sara protested. She tilted the frame back and forth,   
but couldn't get a clear view.   
  
"Not by much. I wasn't supposed to come back. You know that, right?" Clara's words were slow   
and serious. "If it hadn't been for you, I would have died. You kept me alive, and then you made   
it possible for me to come back. What you gave up made it possible. Things are going to be   
different; we'll never be the kind of people we should have been. But we'll have--"   
  
"--We'll still have here, even if we don't have the rest of it." Sara'd never said that sentence   
before, but it came out of her mouth like it had been programmed. She set the picture frame back   
down and turned to face her sister. "You are coming home, right?"   
  
Clara hesitated, just for a second, before answering. "Maybe. I don't know what happens next."   
She drew a deep breath, then whistled it out between her front teeth. "I'm not going to walk   
through our front door tomorrow, if that's what you mean. At least, I don't think so. It might   
happen. It might never happen. We have here. That's all I know for sure."   
  
"I want more than that," Sara said.   
  
"I know. So do I." Clara shrugged. "The Ship can only do so much. We can only bend the rules   
so much. We're just not that special."   
  
"Is that what you learned in your dreams?"   
  
A small laugh escaped Clara's lips. "Sometimes. There's so much more too it than that."   
  
"Will you . . . tell me about it? Someday?"   
  
"Yeah. But first. . . " Clara let her words drop off and turned to look at the bedroom door. In the   
real world its equivalent was a plain pressed wood door with a simple metal doorknob. Here, if   
anyone could touch it, he might find the same thing.   
  
Sara knew better. To ease her loneliness she had brought people into her room, into her head.   
They never stayed for long. Everyone who had tried to open that door had instead vanished   
through it, going someplace . . . else. She didn't know where. They vanished from both the real   
world and the one in her head at the same time. Somehow she had caused them to go. When she   
was finally able to talk to the Ship, it brought Clara back through the door, and showed Sara how   
to bring back the others. "It's time," she said.   
  
Across the room the door swung open. Through it stepped the first of those people Sara had   
come here to see: A young man in his late teens with almost black hair, and a broad, high-cheek   
boned face. She had seen him once before, but hadn't been able to pay attention. Now she looked   
at him and saw a person who wasn't quite a stranger, and wasn't quite familiar. It was like   
running into a friend she hadn't seen in a very long time and to whom she couldn't place a name.   
  
What she could see is that unlike the last time, he didn't seem scared. He didn't know why he was   
here; she could sense that very clearly, but he knew that this time he would find out. He took one   
step into the room. She matched his step, then stopped. She didn't want to get too close, just in   
case.   
  
"When you wake up," she said, not introducing herself because she figured no introduction was   
needed, "I don't know how much you'll remember. I'm sorry for what happened to you. For what I   
did to you."   
  
Alejo stepped further into the room, which brought him to the edge of the bed on which Clara   
rested. She pulled up her knees, giving him a silent invitation to sit down. Wordlessly, without   
reservation, he accepted it, perching on the corner of the bed, his eyes still on Sara.   
  
She listened carefully, and tried to put into words the thoughts it placed in her head. "You'll be   
okay in the morning. That's what the Ship says."   
  
"The Ship," he echoed, a fleeting look of confusion crossing his face. "The Ship es, iss, here?"   
He touched the side of his head above his ear.   
  
"Yes. The voice in your head is the Ship talking. Sometimes you'll be able to understand   
everything it says, and sometimes you won't understand anything. At least, not consciously.   
Inside," she tapped her chest above her heart, "you'll always know."   
  
His eyes narrowed, crinkling around the corners as he puzzled through what she said. "Ah, si.   
Understand," he said, at last, standing up as if to leave.   
  
"There's something else," Sara said, stopping him. This next part didn't make any sense to her;   
not yet. She wanted to demand that the Ship tell her everything, right now. She had the time to   
listen, but Alejo only had a few minutes here and there were things she had to say.   
  
"Que? What?" he asked.   
  
"They call themselves the Tomorrow People," Sara said. "That's what I'm supposed to tell you."   
  
"The Tomorrow People?" Alejo repeated, testing the words slowly. "I no understand."   
  
"You will. I'm also supposed to tell you that."   
  
Alejo seemed satisfied with the answer, even though he clearly didn't understand it. Unlike her,   
he had the patience to wait for the time when the answer would make sense. He stood up again   
and turned as if to leave the room. He was already beginning to fade from sight, and Sara knew   
there was no need from him to go out the door in order to leave. The door still wasn't an exit, but   
one wasn't needed. He turned back before he got there with a final question. "You are?" he asked,   
his eyes narrowed as if he already knew the answer and wasn't sure he liked it. "A Tomorrow   
People?"   
  
Sara thought back over everything that had happened: Clara's disappearance, and her own   
entrapment; at the fantasy world she had created in her own head, and how desperately lonely she   
had been there, and what she'd done to try to ease that loneliness. And Lisa, a Tomorrow Person   
in spite of herself who had come to accept what she was. That was something they should have   
had to common: being Tomorrow People. Sara looked at Alejo, but could see nothing in his   
brown eyes except open curiosity. He wasn't going to judge, because he didn't understand enough   
to make a judgement..   
  
She next looked to her sister, to the china blue eyes that matched her own. These were also open   
and waiting. There was no judgment there either; it did no one any good to critique the could-have beens. Clara just wanted to know how this question was going to be answered.   
  
Sara shook her head slowly, a small smile starting on her lips. "Oh no," she stated, "Not any   
more."   
  
END 


End file.
